


they only come out at night

by TooManyGaysTooLittleTime



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst and Romance, F/F, Monster of the Week, No Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerburg, POV Third Person Multiple, Slow Burn, geralt is your friendly-ish local werewolf, jaskier is the obligatory faerie, no beta we die like renfri, triss is the friendly witch who runs the local essential oils store, well fast for the amount of chapters but slow for word count, yennefer is the scary witch who everyone is scared of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24987628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyGaysTooLittleTime/pseuds/TooManyGaysTooLittleTime
Summary: Yennefer is a witch, trained by Tissaia de Vries. Having entered a new town, Yennefer is quickly made aware of all its secrets and hidden monsters...Triss has been practising witchcraft quietly for years in the backwater town of Temeria. She’s kept them safe from supernatural threats for years, but now they are increasing in number and she is losing the ability to cope.Geralt just needs a nap.And Jaskier has a bad reputation with the locals, even without being a faerie.(Rated M due to dark themes, but this fic is safe for minors/does not contain sexual content! Generally speaking, if you were fine with the Witcher TV series, then you should be fine with this. Chapter-specific TWs are given - please inform me if there is anything more in this fic that you wish to be warned about.)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Triss Merigold, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	1. evil’s pouring down on this haunted town

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got to thank too many lordi videos at an ungodly hour of the night for basically handing me this au on a platter... enjoy
> 
> (title from they only come out at night by lordi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus thinks it will be an easy job. 
> 
> He is so incredibly wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy, someone dies in this
> 
> okay, that’s not an actual TW so //tw death, body horror and graphic descriptions of the inside of the human chest. please read with caution if any of these are triggers.
> 
> (chapter title from haunted town by lordi)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Remus knocks on the door cautiously: the mansion is supposedly inhabited, but the weeds and rubbish that are all over the site speak of an abandoned place instead. He peers in through the dirtied windows upon the door, attempting to make out the shape of what is inside. When nobody comes to open it, he steps back and rams his shoulder into it with a grunt. It hurts like a bitch, but makes a noticeable impact—the door is starting to crumple slightly inwards. With a grimace, he shoves again, this time chipping a splinter away. Dry flecks of paint settle on the stone steps in front of the house. 

His efforts have led to the centre of the door beginning to cave in, and when he feels it, punching it experimentally (his hands are taped, ready for a fight), the wood groans as it gives way under his knuckles. Remus leans into the door with his shoulder, shoving with his body weight, and it buckles against him. He stumbles upright, peering into the mansion through the large hole that he created in the door, and ducks down to fit through the gap. 

Grazing the crown of his head on a stray splinter, he curses and dips his head down further. Remus gropes at the top edge of the gap to ensure that he doesn’t get another minor scrape to his body. He lifts from his crouched position slowly, anxiety beginning to hum through him as he stands and his eyes flick around the entryway of the mansion, attempting to identify the threat from the condition of the house.

Frowning, he steps closer to one wall and runs his hand along it, fingers pressing into the crumbling pieces of material. Bits fall onto the dusty floor at his touch, scattering and causing a raucous clatter in the otherwise quiet house. 

Remus hears the scrape of long, non-human nails upon a wall, and a shrill shriek from a distance away, and fear creeps up his spine. While he is usually unafraid in the face of danger, he is certain that the shriek belongs to something other than the garkain that he expected. And that would make the assortment of objects that he bought from the redhaired witch—jars of silver filings and Vampire Oil—useless.

Resisting the urge to curse out both the witch and himself, he uncorks the bottle and swallows a mouthful of the black potion tucked inside his jacket. As the muscles in his hands begin to seize up with the transformation, Remus drops the bottle, and it smashes on the floor.

The part of his brain that remains human goes, _Oh fuck._

The sound of the bottle smashing will doubtless draw the monster to his location, and Remus doesn’t rate his chances of being able to fully transform before it reaches him. Transformation state is his most vulnerable, for he cannot move while his skeleton and muscle shift into wolf form. Fur begins sprouting up from his hands, the coarse black hair that usually covers it turning to silvery. His skull cracks as the bone moves, and it hurts badly.

Not more than death will, though, so Remus forces himself to turn, body protesting as he tries to sniff the air through a morphing nose. 

Everything fucking _hurts_ and he knows that he is going to fucking _die_ here. Because of a fucking miscalculation on his part. He wants to curse himself for being a fool. 

Pain lances through him as his back arches and his spine cracks, and distantly he can hear shrieks that have a distinct edge of joyousness in them echoing through the empty house.

He drops to his knees, legs giving out as the bones shift to become thinner, and his vision fails as his eyes start changing into the blue eyes of his werewolf form. Complete black seems only a step away from the intimidating darkness of the house, but he can’t pretend that his current situation has changed, for the scent of the monster is growing stronger. 

_A striga. That’s what it is,_ he thinks as his eyesight begins to clear, but far too slowly. The dirty, darkened brown carpet of the house is against his forehead, feeling scratchy and rough. He is vaguely aware that he is convulsing on the carpet, the potion’s effect seemingly failing as he feels himself changing _still_ , bones thickening and strengthening and his body growing. 

The shrieks are growing louder, reverberating in Remus’s half-changed and sensitive ears, and the striga’s nails sound against the carpet.

Remus knows that he is already lost. 

Still, he valiantly tries to lift himself up—he nearly manages—and fling himself at the striga, his fists ending in wolf claws. 

He gets a good scratch down its side, reaching over its head and with its face pinned by his knee. For a moment he dares to hope that he has made it: that the striga is weakened enough to allow him to get away and find his bearings, that he may survive this fight. 

That hope disappears the moment he is thrown away, back hitting the hole in the door and splinters digging into his shoulders, and the striga descends upon him, nails pressing through his naked skin and piercing into his body. The striga shrieks as it pulls out its nail, and blood wets Remus’s skin.

Remus leans back against the door, knowing that his last moments are upon him, and through his broken throat he lets out a howl.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Geralt is currently bedded down in the middle of a forest, meditating with legs crossed upon the worn sleeping bag that he has used for years. The pressure of the outside world disappears with the closing of his eyes, and the only sensations he feels are the softness of the sleeping bag under his legs and the chill air on his skin. The darkness is comforting, an old friend in strange times.

He is perfectly content to stay as he is, with only the company of the forest and his tent to witness his meditation, but his eyes snap open, irises flashing golden, as a howl cuts through his mind.

Immediately, his fight-or-flight response activates, and he scrambles up, off the sleeping bag, which crumples at his motions, to stand up. Tipping his head back, he opens his mouth to let out a howl in return, projecting it upwards towards where the full moon shines onto the forest.

The sound is less strong, coming from a human throat, but Geralt is loud enough that several of the crows scatter, the flutter of their wings as desperate as the pain of the wolf on the other side of the howl. His ears pick up everything in the forest: the gentle cascade of a leaf to the ground, a scuttling movement beneath a log. He cannot hear the other wolf’s next howl, though, and that concerns him deeply. It could mean that someone had disrupted their exchange, either purposefully or not. It could mean that the wolf had simply not heard him. Or, and Geralt fears to think of this, it could mean that the wolf had slipped into unconsciousness... or gotten slow... and died.

Geralt thinks back to the initial howl. It had been cut short, broken off at the end (by what, exactly, Geralt didn’t want to think about), and sounded like an amalgamation of the way it sounded coming from human and wolf throats. During transformation, then, and probably ended by other means than the Witcher’s mouth. Terrified, as well, but of what? Geralt didn’t know, and that was enough to make him wary—not scared, not yet.

He sniffs at the air, trying to gauge where he is relative to the location of the original howl. Initially, only pine and snow fill his nostrils, but he finds a smell of wolf within it, and closes his eyes to focus all of his senses on following it. Stumbling over a twig, he rights himself and continues to chase it.

When his boots find themselves sinking into imprints in the ground, Geralt stops, and opens his eyes. He doesn’t know how long he’s been following the trail: his sense of time warps and changes when he concentrates on one particular thing, and once he looks up at the sky, he sees that it is still nighttime.

Geralt sniffs the air. The scent of the previous wolf is far stronger, and now riddled with fear. He contracts his pupils to see better in the darkness that hangs heavy over the town like a blanket, as if even the moon could not reach the witcher who had been here, and, looking out from his vantage point hidden in a clump of bushes, he realises that he knows this place, although he’s never been before.

Temeria.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Triss shuffles about the bottles of herbs, sighing at how messy the latest customer—the wife of one of the miners—had left them. Rearranging the tarragon into a neat row, she turns, her cloud of fluffy chestnut hair flying into her face, as the bell hung above the door of her shop tinkles.

She catches a flash of golden eyes as the white-haired person turns their face away from her at her notice to glance at the scented candles arranged on a shelf to their right. Triss, always ready to please, tucks the last tarragon bottle into line and takes up her place behind the desk, which is laden with various potted plants. The person—tall, their head reaching the top of the doorframe, and bulk accentuated by dark clothing—trails their fingers across the rows of candles, and spins to face her, light on their feet despite their size, frowning.

“Have any actually useful things in here, witch?” The gruff voice is echoed around the shop, bounced off and changed by the abnormally thick vines and flowers coating the ceiling and the available wall space.

Folding her arms on the counter and laying her head in her hands, Triss’ eyes flick to the side, reading the labels of the bottles sitting beside the till. “Swallow, Black Blood, Full Moon...” Her eyebrows raise performatively as she looks at the man. Sure enough, his eyes light up and he strides to the counter. Her instincts about this man are correct—he’s a Witcher, undoubtedly in Temeria to seek out one of the monsters here. It’s almost too perfect an opportunity for her.

As his mouth opens, Triss stops him by speaking over him. “I know who you are. You’re a Witcher, and I—this town and I—need your help.”

The man’s eyebrows lift, and Triss notices that while lines appear on his forehead to show that the gesture is happening, his eyebrows are completely white, as well. If she were not a witch (and therefore accustomed to strange things), she would have thought this detail, and by extension him, creepy, nearly monstrous with how different he was to normality.

Although over her years of practising witchery she has encountered several people who had thought the least of her and her profession, often leading to strained encounters in the presence of others and downright violent scenes when they were alone, Triss feels a pang of sympathy for him: she can blend in well enough when she wants to, for her appearance was not drastically altered away from the normal when she underwent her graduation from Aretuza, but with the white hair and golden eyes, he must surely be a target of suspicion. His manner, however, has so far been the rudest Triss has encountered, and therefore she doesn’t show her sympathy.

“Help with that monster in your town? That one that killed one of my fellow wolves?” Speaking so many words seems to take a lot out of him, and she gets the impression that he is not used to having to make conversation.

Frowning, Triss lifts her head and taps her fingers against her chin in thought. “There was a Witcher, I believe, who several of the mining families paid to take care of the monster living in the former mayor’s wife Adda’s house. She’s laid to rest in there,” Triss adds as she remembers the detail, “they couldn’t get in the house and retrieve her body from the monster.”

The man—Witcher—turns away from her to run his eyes over a shelf containing the majority of the potions Triss sells. Contemplative quiet falls over the shop, occasionally broken when one of the bottles is shaken, or when a cork is pulled from a bottle and the contents sniffed at.

He turns to her, chewing on his bottom lip in what Triss thinks must be a tic. “Could the monster—be the mayor’s wife? Adda?”

Slowly, Triss shakes her head, chestnut hair falling into her eyes as she does so. “No, I don’t think so. I was given the task of cleansing her body when she died, and nothing about it struck me as monstrous.”

“You’ve been in there?” Although he doesn’t move from the shelf, his interest is evident.

“A few times, before it was closed off.”

“Did you notice anything unusual—strange—anything like that?” He seems frustrated, but whether it’s from having to make conversation or whether it’s from the lack of clues he’s found so far, Triss is unable to tell.

“They buried her daughter along with her—she died when she was a child, but I never saw her body. I didn’t think much of it at the time...” Frowning, Triss bites her bottom lip. “But, looking back now, it is rather suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the Witcher says, the depth of his tone of voice making the word seem more like a growl than actual talking. “The girl—I think she’s alive, and I think she’s the monster.”

Triss is no stranger to ethical questions—for a long time, she has wondered whether she had done the correct thing after she had pushed her fellow initiates, transformed into eels, into the pool at Aretuza, and her experience practising witchcraft had further caused her to doubt about the path that she chose. Killing a child, however, even if the child was a monster... that was something that Triss had doubts about.

“I’ll need to know what kind of monster it is,” the man says, pacing around the shop, his boots scrunching up the weave carpet. Resisting the urge to smooth it out, Triss moves from behind the counter to the bookshelf on the far left side of the shop and drags the ladder she keeps leaning against the side of the shelf to position in front of it. Her fingers trail across the spines out of boredom as she thinks to where she had placed the bestiary. The touch of a leather bound spine against the pads of her fingers reminds her, and she moves the ladder further down the bookshelf. Her small stature means that she has to climb the ladder to reach all shelves above the sixth row, and the bestiary is stored on the eighth and highest shelf. He watches intently as she ascends the ladder and, with a grunt, draws out the thick volume. Gathering it under her arm, she goes down the ladder, keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling, which is painted in chipped pea green. Triss places it on the counter, dust rising in small clouds from the book as she does so, and opens it, beginning to flick through the worn and browned pages at speed.

The man watches over her shoulder from a respectful distance, enough that Triss doesn’t feel caged in, as she leafs through the book. “It’ll be one that involves the child’s body changing—it won’t look like a kid, not at all, which will help when fighting it—” The words come out sounding like a stream of consciousness rather than a list of qualities expected for a monster, but she understands them all the same. As she looks through, she automatically strikes off any entries that don’t mention a transformation from human to beast, marking the pages that do mentally. She reaches the end of the book and scans the last page, which is an index of all the monsters.

“It could be anything from one of the types of vampires listed to a nightwraith,” Triss thinks aloud, finger crossing the list of names.

The man groans, clearly fed up. “This is useless. I’m going to sniff out the area.”

Reaching for his arm, Triss grabs the fabric of his jacket to stop him from moving. “Be careful,” she says, her eyes wide and full of concern. “The locals aren’t always friendly to witchers, and particularly not after one has already failed.”

Her tone seems to trigger a heightened awareness from him, shown by the set of his eyes and the way that the meat of his arm stiffens and tenses under her grip. “I’ll be fine.” A curt nod at her shows that he has taken her words as the warning they are.

Triss lets go of his arm and smiles weakly. He turns away from her and strides out of the shop, a bunch of dried herbs hitting his shoulder as he passes them and the bell hung above the door tinkling far too loudly in the new quiet that falls upon the rows of herbs and books.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The body of the _thing_ that lies slumped against the broken-open and splintered door isn’t particularly appetising. While the white fur shows affiliations with the small creatures that sometimes make their way into the home, it is strangely combined with skin that recalls mother’s in the last moments of her life. What manner of creature is this that dares to enter home, and dares to injure this body too?

It is no matter. The thing is dead, for whatever heart it has in its body no longer pulses against the chest when long nails reach for it, and the organs smell tasty enough and are warm when they are dug out of the body using talons.

One bite of a string of meat, like the sausages left out for the creature that had been small, black and heavily furred (which had been devoured early, a sweet morsel for something that was then but a child) turns the stomach, sets it to roiling. With a screech of insult, the string of meat is tossed aside, hitting the broken wall of the home, and once again a reminder of the terrible condition that the body, when it was alive, had left home in, hits the heart thrumming inside the chest of this body with a feeling of sadness. Hatred flows through the muscles and into the motions of the nails as they tear at the corpse’s chest, ripping it open and leaving the organs steaming once exposed to the open air. They are moist from the red liquid—of a thicker consistency than the water that drips from the metal contraptions, which sprays onto the many eyes and nearly blinds several of them. With the purpled and bony back of one of the hands, the liquid is wiped away. It starts to appear brown, like the hair that the corpse had growing out of the head, as it dries and gradually becomes less slick upon the hand.

Licking it, the liquid tastes much like the metal contraptions had on the tongue. The flavour is putrid, yet there is an appeal to it. However, the preference is far more towards the warm organs that rest inside the cavity of the torso.

From experience with the small creatures that have inadvertently wandered into home and found themselves to become a meal, the tastebuds upon the long tongue that extends from the mouth know that the flattened and light pink flabs of skin encased in a cage of white bone cause a sickening of the stomach once eaten and that the various weavings of long, threadlike tubes that lay upon and over the organs contain more of the red-brown liquid which erupts should it be ripped by clumsy movements of the nails. Therefore, while the nails pick at the weaving of the tubes together, the motions are carefully and gingerly performed.

The tubes are stubborn, though, not wishing to be moved out of the body. With a cry of frustration, they are ripped, causing liquid to fall out of the ends of the tubes and splatter the body beneath, and as they are swung through the air droplets fall across the walls, floor and ceiling and paint it in spatters of red.

With the tubes no longer an obstruction to the pleasant-smelling organs, which have by now begun to cool off and no longer emit clouds of steam into the air, the nails are free to dig into the cavity in the torso and start prising out the individual organs, reddened from what must be the liquid.

While the taste of the inner meat of animals is familiar, several of the organs that the teeth sink into provide cause for repulsion. In particular, a short tube far down the torso tastes of dead cells and membranes and is quickly flung away, the partially watery brown substance inside it flying out to stain the area under the angled ceiling.

A snarl escapes as talons tear further into the body. Burning hunger is by now a familiar companion, and the opportunity for it to be sated feels much like it imagines the gatherings of warm, meat-filled beings in the pleasant-looking homes would be like. Yet this occasion is not joyous, as the body has instead turned out to be full of strange organs that leave bitter and horrible tastes in the mouth.

By now, the pile of organs that has gathered up behind is beginning to reek and rot from being away from the body and exposed to the air for a while. The stench is strong, but not terribly different from the usual smell of death and decay that permeates the surroundings. From in between the bars of the white cage, a reddened and slick piece of muscle is dug out. Thick tubes connect it to the body, but they are of no matter, for the teeth are sharp and deadly—well able to tear them easily. As it is brought in front of the flat nose, and the slits open slightly to take in the scent, it can tell that this piece of meat will make a delicious meal.

At first bite, that guess turns out to be true. The muscle is firm, but becomes malleable with chewing, and the liquid that spurts out of it to bathe the inside of the mouth simply makes the experience more enjoyable.

Chewing on it, a feeling is experienced that has never been felt before: satisfaction, and happiness. The hands attempt to shove the entire heart into the mouth with how enjoyable it finds this series of happenings, nearly causing choking, but the possible injury is of no matter when happiness, euphoria even, is flowing through the body and overtaking any other emotions.

It is so engaged in the activity that when a boot crushes garbage underneath the thick ridges of the sole and a gruff voice curses under their breath, its ears do not pick it up and therefore it does not rise from its crouched position, ready to defend its home. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Triss rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand, blinks before looking up from the book. Night has settled over the town and the shelves cast long shadows over the shop, the only light coming from the candle that she had lit more out of respect for her eyes than illuminating the shop. As is typical of her business days, nobody had entered except that witcher, and he had not bought anything from her. She leaves the candle lit and carries it through to the back room, where she puts it on a shelf with some scented candles that she hadn’t managed to sell last Christmas and incense burners. Unhooking her peacoat from where it is hung up, she slips it on, lifting her hair away from underneath the collar so it fans out across her shoulders. Blowing out the candle after she’s shut the door to the back room, she settles it on the counter and gropes in the peacoat pocket to find the gloves that she has stashed in there. The fleece fits over her fingers easily, a smooth slide that comes with age and wear, and feels soft as she flexes her hands inside them.

Shutting the door behind her, taking care to not inadvertently jostle the bell and disturb the quiet night outside, she pulls her peacoat tighter around her to stave off the cold of the nights between the end of winter and the start of summer in Temeria.

Triss lives in a house a fair distance away from the centre of town, rented from the main landlord in the area—Foltest—who thankfully hadn’t seen a problem with letting her practice the occasional spot of witchcraft in the garden or attic. It is placed on a small hill that bounds up steeply from the town’s commercial hub, flattening out at the top.

On the whole, Temeria has tolerated her, as can be evidenced by the lack of people who have accosted her in her shop or while she is walking home or in the nearby woods that surround the town. Tolerance, however, does not necessarily mean that she and the people of the town are on friendly terms—she has noticed a harried mother point out her to the children at her heels and whisper something into their ears. Still, the lot that she’s been dealt is a decent one: the largest town and the most northernmost in this particular area, Cintra, is notoriously anti-witchcraft and anti-faerie, as evidenced by the witch hunts and the genocide that had wiped out the majority of the faeries living in the area around the town, and Triss would have feared for her life if she had been sent there. 

A shiver passes through her body beneath her peacoat, and she wishes for a hot drink cupped in her gloved hands or a warm candle clutched close to her face to provide heat. Her breath rises in pale clouds of steam in the night air. She hurries her walk, her legs dully complaining about the increase pace underneath her. 

The moon is a waning gibbous above her and barely illuminates the footpath and road, slivers of silver the only light to see by. Thankfully, nobody is outside their house, and Triss doesn’t have to deal with the added problem of a human who doesn’t know what to do should an unexpected supernatural occurrence happen.

In particular, she is concerned about the monster that the witcher had spoken about. It is not every day that news of a witcher being bested by a monster reach her, and if the monster could kill a witcher, she is afraid that the town will not survive should it move from where it is currently located in the abandoned house of Vizima.

Triss shakes her head at herself as she walks towards the front gate of the house, leaning over the spikes to unhinge the thin metal bolt holding it in place. The bottom of the gate drags over the ground of the path due to the bolts securing it at the side being rusted and bent, the screech making Triss’s ears hurt for a moment. Closing and securing it behind her, she shoves her hands into her peacoat’s pockets to root around for the keys to the house. She feels the jagged metal of the end sticking into her side and pulls it out, the keys jangling from the tag with Foltest’s address scrawled on it. Inserting the key into the lock, she twists and pushes the handle down, shoving it harder after her first attempt fails, opening the door.

Reaching up to the switch on the wall on her left side, she turns on the hallway light, and closing the door, pulls off her peacoat to hang over the end of the stairwell. She rubs her eyes when they start to flicker closed with tiredness, unzipping her boots and tossing them across the floor.

Normally Triss might spend a while sitting on the sofa in the main room, leafing through one of the books that she had brought to Temeria, a hot drink by her side for her to take occasional sips from, but the time is getting late—she really shouldn’t have whiled away that much time in the shop, no matter how intriguing the problem was to her. Instead, she heads up the stairs, flicking off the hallway light as she goes, and into her bedroom, the bed still unmade and her suitcase sitting open with clothing alternately folded neatly inside it or strung out across the floor. She sits down on the bed, mattress creaking beneath her weight, and undresses slowly, movements hindered by how tired she is.

Once undressed, she ducks her head under the fabric of a long nightgown in order to slip it on, and goes to the bathroom, the bright white light hurting her eyes when she turns it on. Triss brushes her teeth without looking at the mirror—although she likes to think that she’s vetted the place thoroughly for supernatural threats, the point still remains that she can never be too careful. She spits in the sink and goes to bed, turning off all the lights.

Despite the familiarity of her bedtime routine and the warmth under the covers, Triss still finds it difficult to get to sleep that night.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Geralt’s camp is not too far away from Temeria, thankfully. If he wished to bed down there for the night, it would be a sensible choice.

Rather than sleep, however, he’s chosen to stalk the place, his footsteps carefully chosen after his close call with the crunch from the pile of garbage bags earlier in the day. His sniffing has turned up little so far, and therefore he had retreated to the woods to gather his thoughts and supplies, frowning at the lack of potions and making a mental note to go back to the redhaired witch to restock.

He always prefers night to day—it’s something about the edge that his mutated senses give him, what with the degree of night vision he has and the added benefit that fewer people can see and subsequently be revolted by his appearance.

In this case, with the monster’s type unknown apart from the fact that it is a child, Geralt likes to sink back into the familiarity of darkness to provide coverage, as well as increasing the likelihood that the monster will be dormant.

With fewer cars and people passing by, Geralt finds that his sense of smell improves, and he begins to catch glimpses of what the monster is like: notably, that it is a fussy eater if the piles of barely-nibbled corpses outside the house are anything to go by, and that it apparently likes to stay to the house, for any scent is absent from the outside except for what must have been several trips outside for food. The lack of a clear scent is pissing him off, particularly because of how useful it would be in pinning down the type of monster, but Geralt is persistent, and manages to strike off the probability of it being any type of vampire: he’s fought enough bruxae to know the scent of vampire, and this monster isn’t one.

Geralt thinks, not for the first time, of why he does this. Why he keeps going, stupidly, foolishly, into the mouth of danger, when he knows perfectly well that there’s a large chance he won’t come out alive. 

The answer isn’t a simple one, but then it never is. Geralt has spent enough time upon this earth to know that the minutiae of humanity—feelings, thoughts, desires—are always complicated, and he is human, at least partially. 

Broadly, Geralt has come to the conclusion, he wants to _help_ —he wants the people to live without having to fear, he wants homes to be restored and the rifts healed. His saviour complex is a part of him that is well-hidden, yet shows through in everything he does. 

Struck by a sudden desire to take a terrible risk, Geralt ducks down to travel underneath the fence separating and caging in the house. It’s chain-link, probably electrified as well, but no tell-tale hum runs through the metal. The fence is clearly designed to close off the house, which is interesting, to say the least. It tells him that one or more people are aware that a monster is in the house, and they know how to separate it from the outside world, which in Geralt’s experience is something fairly uncommon. 

He starts to move around to the back when he catches the smell of a fellow wolf witcher. The smell stinks enough that it’s clearly from a corpse, and Geralt’s respect for his dead fellows is enough that he will risk his life to give them the funeral rites that they deserve. 

Geralt picks out the shape of the body, lying loose and lifeless against a large hole that has been ripped into the door. Only the head is visible from out front, the skin pale in the moonlight. A quick sniff informs him that his presence has not been noticed yet, and emboldened, he pads soundlessly through the rubbish-ridden and overgrown garden at the front of the house until the body is in his line of sight.

The majority of the corpse is inside the house, part of the head the only bit sticking out. Geralt crouches to sneak up the porch steps and, still crouching, reaches through the door to grab hold of the man’s shoulders. 

Upon hearing a dull sound from the first floor of the house, Geralt freezes, thoughts going immediately to his lack of defenses. It quietens, though, and Geralt starts lifting the body, grunting at the heft and weight of it as he pulls it through the hole. 

The chest is open, revealing it to have been left an empty cavity by the monster. Curious, Geralt peets into the house, and notices a large pile of organs in the hall, browned blood staining onto the carpet. 

Geralt would have liked to stay longer to investigate, but the body in his arms is reeking with decay, reminding him that it needs burial. He stands up, lifting the body over his shoulder, and tracks a path through the garden and under the chain-link fence.

Once outside, Geralt’s eyes immediately flick around his surroundings. The Temerian forest is a black mass on the other side of the road, and he crosses into it, golden eyes flicking either way to make sure that he is not being observed. Geralt carries the body further, until he reaches a spot in the middle of the forest that looks untouched by humans, and where the ground is relatively flat. He lays the corpse down to one side, and begins to palm the dirt, scraping it from the ground and into a pile next to the growing cavity in the ground. 

The grave is shallow, only a foot and a half deep, and Geralt is filled with remorse that he can’t do better for the dead witcher. He lifts the body up from where he has laid it down and places it gently into the ground. 

Scooping up handfuls of dirt, he scatters them atop the body, smoothing and packing down the disturbed soil as he goes. Once it is covered, he reaches for pebbles to mark the spot, arranging them in a circle atop the spot where the witcher’s heart was. 

Geralt is not a religious man, and nothing in this world could make him one, but he says a prayer over the body all the same. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Triss pushes her hair away from her face, groggy, and blinks before looking up at the old-fashioned clock on her dresser. It takes her a moment to take in, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from her eyes, before she can figure out the time.

Pushing away the covers, Triss scrambles off the bed and reaches onto the dresser to run a brush through her hair, which has become tangled in the night, and starts lifting her nightgown off her body, entirely unselfconsciously. She crouches and reaches into the suitcase to yank out a jumpsuit, the fabric of the legs dragging across the floor, and starts slipping into it, pooling the top half around her waist so she can rearrange her bra from where it digs into her back.

Neglecting toothbrushing, Triss pulls on her socks and tugs the jumpsuit into place over her shoulders, inspecting herself in the mirror before she leaves the bedroom. The bare-minimum makeup she wears has survived a bit of smudging, thank God, and she only needs to wipe away some mascara that stains her fingers with black paste before she looks presentable. Thus ready, Triss takes the stairs at a fast pace, feet making loud impacts as they land, and bends down to reach the boots where they have slumped over in the night. Tugging the zippers up, Triss slides her arms into the peacoat and exits the house, doing up the coat as she goes.

The morning is late and cold, the sun visible in the sky and bathing the rows of houses in stark yellow light. Shivering inadvertently, Triss nods to several of the neighbours as she passes, attempting to feign friendliness.

She doesn’t find the witcher near her shop, and so Triss slides a ‘Closed’ sign into position over the door and sets out to look for him. The white hair is distinctive enough that she should have no trouble finding him in the small crowd of brown and dark-haired people that usually come to the commercial centre of Temeria. She doesn’t find him, though, and therefore takes a gamble by leaving the town centre by way of a back alley and walks by the side of a minor motorway that runs through the northern part of town. It does take a fair while, but eventually the rows of houses start to clear and slowly become more old and abandoned, and the forest around Temeria starts to come into sharp relief.

Triss notices Vizima, a dark shadow seeming to hang over the house, and automatically makes a warding sign with her fingers. A large cavity in the door draws her attention, and after casting a sign of protection in front of her and running her fingers over a gemstone amulet in her pocket, she draws closer to the front gate, not daring to touch, and squints to get a better idea of the house.

The hole is barely tall enough to fit a human comfortably, but the remnants of a warding spell still cling to the door, and Triss squints, intrigued, studying the weave and weft of the magic. She picks out the rough edges where it hadn’t quite joined together to provide protection, the broken links where the door had been destroyed.

With the emergence of this new knowledge, Triss finds herself wondering if the girl had been bespelled by the same mage that had cast the spell on the door. She studies the traces of magic’s signature, attempting to link it back to a person that she can pin the formation of the monster to.

One of the colors strikes her, and she knows that she recognises it. It’s a bright, offensive green that joins the lines of the spell together, holding it firm. She has seen it before, and she rubs her forehead furiously to try and work out where.

Her eyes lift from the ground, and Triss notices a quick movement out of the corner of her eye that sets the leaves on the bushes fluttering madly. A flash of stringy white hair informs her of exactly whom it is.

“Witcher?” she calls, her voice quietened due to the possibility of someone passing by.

Golden irises are visible from a ways away, glinting in the sun as Geralt’s eyes meet hers. He nods at her, slowly, already starting to crunch through the tangles of weeds filling the side of the garden.

As he approaches, Triss’s gaze catches on several pieces of crumpled and dirtied paper in his hand. Geralt looks proud as he passes them to her, and Triss makes a face at how soiled they are as she spreads them out to reveal the writing on them.

The letters are handwritten, the hand scrawling across the page slanting and small. She brushes away a clod of dirt to read the writing properly.

Her eyes track over the page, slowly becoming wider as she reads further and further on. The content of the letters would have damned Adda socially if they had been widely known, and the proof is irrefutable that the child was born ill.

“My landlord was having an affair with his _sister_? And this child is _theirs_?” Triss is horrified and shocked by the revelation. “No wonder the writer talks about getting an abortion for her.”

Geralt’s dirty blackened fingernail points to the top of the page, where Triss can read an address and a name.

_Ostrit Darmore, White House._

Triss knows the place: it’s not too far away from the town’s shopping centre, but distanced by the barrier of privilege that separates everyone in Temeria from each other.

“I know where it is,” Triss says, breaking the silence. “We should go there. He might know something.”

The stare Geralt is giving the name on the paper is deadly, like a snake might stare down a mouse. “I _know_ that he knows everything.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Ostrit flicks through the laminated photographs, fingers skating over her face gently and his eyes fiery when he sees the man next to her. A sharp rap at his door makes him drop the heavy photo album with a noticeable impact on the cabinet. He spares one last glance at the woman in the photograph before moving to the door, peering through the spyhole. 

Outside, he can see a head of woollen-looking white hair and a chipper, smiling woman, chestnut hair cascading about her face.

Ostrit rarely gets visitors, but he gets the sense that these two will be unusual even by his standards. 

He opens the door, pasting what he hopes is a welcoming expression on his face. “Hello,” He begins, taking a step back when the white-haired man immediately barges into his house, his bulk intimidating. 

“What do you know about—”

“Patience,” the woman says, laying a hand across the man’s arm with a stare of disapproval at him. She smiles at Ostrit, seeming altogether too friendly. 

“We just need a little while to talk to you. Would show us to your main room?”

Ostrit nods, not daring to speak out of line with the terrifying man there. “O-of course,” he stumbles, leading them into the house. 

The woman settles on his sofa, stripping off her coat and laying it beside her. The man remains standing, leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

Ostrit swallows and settles in an armchair. “What about?” He asks, trying to stay calm and not give them cause to suspect him.

The woman glances up at the man, and they seem to have an argument in the space of their gaze. Finally the woman sighs and, folding her hands on her lap, starts, “We know that you’re a mage.” 

Right. He can work with this—while their discovery is unexpected, Ostrit has gotten himself out of plenty of situations like this before. “Yes, although I don’t like to advertise it.” 

The man sniffs the air, loudly and obnoxiously. His nostrils thin as he smells the room, and Ostrit feels vaguely threatened—it seems the man can make even sniffing terrifying. 

“Anything else?” He can tell that he’s being over-eager, but the presence of these two people unnerves him, and he wants to get rid of them as quickly as possible. 

“One more,” the woman says, cheerily, but her tone darkens and her eyes stare into his soul as she says, “Did you create the monster that resides in Vizima, and what is it?” 

Oh, no. Ostrit immediately puts his hands in front of him to begin weaving a spell, but the woman reacts, whip-sharp, stopping his wrist with a firm grip.

He gasps as she tightens her grip, a grim smile appearing on her face. “Tell me,” she says under her breath, deadly in her determination, and Ostrit thinks that he’s underestimated her. 

“I—did—please don’t kill me!—” he cries as she twists.

“She asked what it was,” the man says, his voice gravelly as if he’d eaten coal. 

“A—a Striga, I had the spell from my attic—”

“Of course, I should have known,” the man mutters, his intimidating aura dissolving a bit as he sighs heavily.

Ostrit struggles against the grip with one hand, before snatching the other up and prying the witch’s fingers from his arm, standing up and retreating against the window, hands working on a spell to incapacitate, weaving charms of sleep and peace—

The man grunts, and a fist flies at his face, hitting his nose and forehead, the knuckles meeting the skin and the force seeming to vibrate down to his bones.

The last thing Ostrit sees before unconsciousness seeps over him is the man’s derogatory expression. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Stalking up the road to the house, Geralt checks the black taping on his hands, trying a few punches into his palms, pulling them before they reach the strength that they can hurt. He stares down at the path as he walks in order not to give anyone driving by a clear glance at his blackened eyes, the potion’s effect staining the whites of his eyes and his eyelids completely dark. He had made the mistake of not hiding them before, and been called a monster by the townspeople, so he prefers to keep his appearance when he’s affected by the potions hidden.

Pushing a loose strand of hair out of his eyes, he stares up at the main gate’s tall spikes before his gaze drops to the padlock chaining the two pieces of it together. Two picks are jammed in it, the angle misjudged, and he starts working with them immediately, swearing at how small and fiddly the pins are.

The pin’s end presses against a place in the lock, and the rusted lock pops open slightly. Geralt grunts as he pulls the top metal bar of the lock to open it fully, tossing it aside when it comes apart and dragging one of the gates open.

Striding through the entrance, he is stopped by a man advancing from the opposite direction who is flanked by two burly men. Automatically, he finds himself sizing up his opponents: strong in close combat, but they don’t have the reach to carry out a distanced fight for long. The blond man in the centre, however, his hair gray under the moonlight reflecting off the main path to the house, doesn’t seem immediately aggressive, for his hands are folded neatly in front of him and when he approaches Geralt, he gestures for the men to stay back with a shake of his head.

“What are you doing here,” Geralt growls, pissed. He wants to get straight to the job without having to negotiate with townspeople while he’s at it, and especially not while his eyes are affected by the potions. His head is dipped to conceal them, but the path is not shadowed, and if Geralt looks up they will surely notice.

“I know what you’re here to do.” The man’s voice is quiet, a barely-there tremor in the air. “And I can’t let you do it.”

“The monster in that house is a threat to the safety of your town,” Geralt explains, too roughly. He attempts to gentle his voice as he says, “I have to neutralise it in order that you don’t get murdered in your beds while you’re _fucking defenceless_.”

“That monster you speak of is my daughter.” The man looks old and tired when Geralt lifts his eyes from the ground, mildly surprised by this new development. “I can’t let you kill her.”

Someone less empathetic might have said something like _she’s born of incest, she’ll die anyways_ or _why would you want to let a fucking monster live_. Geralt, however, has a measure of empathy (too much), and so he replies, “I’m not. Killing her, I mean.”

The man— _Foltest_ , Geralt thinks—lets out a breath that hisses through his teeth, his entire body seeming to sag heavily. “Then what else? I know what you do. You kill people.”

He lunges close to Foltest, and seizes the man’s collar to drag his face close, taking no joy in the fear that is visible on the other man’s face. “I’m _saving_ her. Breaking the spell that made her this way. And I’m telling you to _fuck right off_ while I do it, unless you want to become a target.”

Foltest swallows once Geralt lets him go, apprehension still flitting across his face, but looking mostly terrified—whether from the words that Geralt had spat at him, or from Geralt’s monstrous appearance. He seems obedient, though, as he nods stutteringly at Geralt to show his agreement. “Come along, men, leave him to deal with her.”

Geralt stands to the side to allow them to pass, closing the gate behind them and knotting the chains to keep them away, before looking back up to the house and starting up the path.

Pushing away the ragged pieces of chain-link fence that block his way, Geralt steps over the bodies of small animals—unlucky rabbits and squirrels, in the main—that obstruct the path and stares up at the mansion, standing before the porch.

A scream rips through the night, and, cursing, he takes the porch steps at a run and uses the front door to enter the house, ducking through the ripped gap as his fellow had in nights before. Moonlight streams down from a newly-ripped hole in the ceiling, illuminating splotches of dark liquid that is likely to be blood.

He avoids the stains, stepping around them, and nods to them out of respect for the man he’d buried.

There is a squelch from the floor as what seems like an organ of some kind slides to the floor in front of him. Gerald makes a face. 

“Strigas are such fucking fussy eaters.”

Stepping over the organ, he stalks further into the house, scanning around in an attempt to locate the crypt that he will need to guard. 

The house is unrecognisable as a normal home, with pristine furniture sitting amidst a maze of holes in the floor and the walls in disrepair. Geralt wants to be stealthy, preferably, in order to not while away his strength in a first confrontation, when the Striga will have the advance of surprise and strength over him. 

His ears prick upon hearing a crash in the distance, but he disregards it and continues through the house, sticking to the shadowed areas and darting past the pieces of moonlight lighting the floor. 

Geralt notices what looks to be the end of a long box, peering at him from under a partially rotted and blackened floorboard. His interest this piqued, he crouched down and trains his eye on the area underfoot.

The moonlight gleams off it, giving it a smooth silvery sheen, and Geralt notices the fine finish. A glint of metal seems to come from the side of the box, and Geralt assumes it must be a hinge, and that he has found the coffin of Adda, supposedly the Striga’s mother. 

He lifts his head urgently as he hears a chilling scream, the sound reverberating through the house and into Geralt’s very bones. 

He slips out the golden claw knuckledusters from the inner pocket of his jacket, sliding them on so they rest stop the black tape. He will use his fists for close contact fighting, and for distanced fighting, Geralt slides out the sword from the long package at his back.

It’s not a skinny rapier, and the end is sharpened enough to draw blood from anything it touches. The weight is heavy and familiar in his left hand (the one he’s always favoured, despite his brothers’ superstitions) and he practised a few guard manoeuvres meant to intimidate the creature.

Because tonight, Geralt is not looking to kill the monster. Injure, perhaps, if he must—but Triss had investigated Ostrit’s house and found a method to reverse the spell that had turned the girl into a Striga. 

Besides, Geralt’s not a killer, no matter how many people have heard about his experience in Blaviken as a soldier. He’s always looking to save someone or something, whether it is a small village under threat from a kikimora, or—like this—a child wrongly cursed.

Geralt curses under his breath when he hears another, louder, enraged shriek. The pitch is so far up the scale that a human listening would find their ears bleeding, but the mutations of his hearing help him to adjust after a few nanoseconds of excruciating pain.

He readies his stance, swiping the air asa practice, keeping his eyes fixed on the area around him.

His eyes are focusing in front of him when a heavy weight suddenly falls upon his back, nails clawing at his body and causing pain for a few moments before his pain receptors dull and allow him to take stock of the situation.

He thrusts a fist behind him, metal connecting with flesh, and the creature howls in pain, but stays on, claws reaching for Geralt’s eyes. He slams his head back, headbutting the Striga, and uses its momentary distraction to throw it off his back.

The Striga lands across from him, and Geralt gets his first good look at it as it circles the coffin and Geralt in the moonlight, its arms thrusting out from the shadowy areas occasionally to feint at him.

His hand closes around the hilt of the sword where he dropped it, and he lifts it, holds it in front of him steadily. The Striga busses at the sigh of the silver blade as if burned, and Geralt thrusts our with it, testing the Striga’s reaction.

Tears seem to well up in its many eyes as it sees the sword, the blackness becoming silvery and moist. It cringes away from the metal like a child from a scary sight, and the pathetic mewl it lets out goes straight to his heart.

Struck by how similar it is to a child, Geralt steps back, heel landing on wood first, then dropping into thin air.

He fumbles with his sword due to the new position, his ankle suddenly trapped in a rotted hole. He scrambles with his other leg, trying to get up and free his foot.

The Striga screams joyously as it launches itself at him, and Gerald has to fend off the battering with his sword over his chest. Its nails are going straight for his heart and solar plexus, one swipe nearly grazing his skin. He falls back onto the floor, wood under his back.

The Striga straddles him, nails going for his eyes, and Geralt manages to shield his face with his protected hands as it bears down upon him, pushing his body further into the rotted floor.

Geralt struggles to sit up, the muscles in his abdomen straining as he lifts his chin to hit the monster’s face, managing to gain a scape of teeth against his jaw.

Swearing, he uses the hand not defending himself to reach for the Striga’s centre of gravity and send it off-balance. He jabs his thumb into the space just below the ribs, putting as much force as possible into it, and the Striga reacts, pulling off of him and attempting to balance itself again.

Talons on the rotting wood rasp within Geralt’s mind as he kicks at the edges of the home in the wood, trying to widen it so he can wiggle his foot free. He pushes up as he kicks particularly hard, and the wood buckled, chips raining down onto the coffin below.

Geralt gets upright, starting to pace around the hole and the coffin. He casts a protection spell as he does so, strengthening it as he continues walking. A faint white force starts to emanate around him, providing some measure of physical protection and preventing the motivation for attack.

He thinks he can almost see the Striga’s brow. quirk in confusion. 

Looking up, he sees the first beginnings of light breaking in the sky, and smiles grimly.

The Striga lunges for him, and he parried a swipe of its nails. It cringes away again, and then does something that Geralt considers frankly extraordinary.

It backs away, turning tail and leaving, the area becoming quiet again.

Geralt shrugs, takes a drink of Swallow, and checks his watch.

Five hours till morning, and he doesn’t think that the Striga will return. He sets to tending to his wounds, wrapping bandages around his arm where the Striga’s nails scratched him, and rubbing ointment onto his chest to reduce any bruising and swelling.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The girl is lying in the fetal position, knees pulled up against her chest and whimpering in fear. She’s naked, with long hair covering her shoulders and spreading over her chest and down her body.

Geralt softens his demeanour as he approaches: the girl is no longer the vicious Striga, her body now fully human, and he doesn’t need to appear threatening. When he gets near, however, she hisses and scrambles away, the motions of her limbs skittish and unsure. She trips on a piece of destroyed furniture and falls, pushing away from Geralt, her eyes wide and fearful.

He understands: to her, he is a monster. Turning away, he wipes away a tear that hasn’t fallen and stares moodily at the ground, seeing the indents where he had crashed down onto the floor.

There is a clack of high heels on stone as Triss steps over the threshold, Foltest following behind. “Is it over?” she mouths, pointing at the shape of the girl.

Geralt nods in confirmation, and Triss immediately rushes to her side, brushing the long, scraggly strands of red hair out of the girl’s face and murmuring soothing words. He looks at them for a moment before turning away, attempting to keep the roiling mixture of jealousy and warmth that he feels at the scene before him inside.

Foltest crosses his arms, frowning. “She’s human?”

“Yes,” Geralt growls lowly as he passes Foltest, leaving Triss to her time with the girl and stalking into the woods to inform the body of his success. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Triss’s eyes barely look up from the work she’s doing at first—the manufacturing of the pendant is fiddly and delicate work, and requires a steady hand and keen eye—and anyways, she is well used to Geralt barging in at random times. The gait, however, is unfamiliar, lighter and more delicate than Geralt’s usual heavy boots, and the bell only rings for a second before it is silenced. When a hand comes to rest on her dresser, gloved in leather with black lace, Triss lifts her head from the pendant, sure that the glove doesn’t belong to Geralt.

Her eyes meet violet ones, sparkling with an amusement that Triss is not privy to, and she notes the expensive dress, the sleek black hair falling over her shoulders. Immediately, she is struck by intimidation and a strange kind of fascination, instantly seduced by the stranger.

“Triss Merigold,” she says, putting down the tiny screwdriver and sticking out her hand, which is thankfully free of any grease.

The other woman pulls off her glove, finger by finger, and it feels agonising to watch: Triss wants to pull them off, lift the hand in hers and kiss it. She is patient, though, and waits for the glove to drop onto the counter.

A warm hand settles in hers, and shakes gently, but with strength evident in the grip and firmness of the handshake. “Yennefer von Vengerburg,” the woman says, the words slipping from her lips like honey.

Triss blushes, red heat filling her cheeks, and smiles, tongue in her cheek. “Pleasure to meet you, Yennefer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took way too long to find the name of that Witcher just so i could kill him off. again.
> 
> also this was a bit rushed because ao3 was threatening to delete my draft so. *shrugs*. sorry?


	2. you won’t be waiting for my return, i promise baby — you’ll burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer can’t quite settle in to Temeria, despite Triss’s help, Triss starts to discover the Yennefer behind the rumours and Geralt takes a new contract.
>
>> “ _Yennefer_.” Tissaia reaches up to grip her chin and force Yennefer to meet her gaze. “You are a force of Chaos. You’re uncontrollable, and that means you’re dangerous. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go to Aedirn. Now that you have tasted freedom, you want to stay that way forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chapter title from it snows in hell by lordi)
> 
>  _alt title for this chapter:_ yen burns shit 
> 
> _alt title for this entire work:_ I Try And Combine A Romance Movie & A Horror Movie And It Doesn’t Go Well
> 
> if someone publishes their geraskier fic with one (1) mention of triss/yenn right above this chapter, i s2g—

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Shaking the other woman’s hand, Yennefer observes her demeanour, attempting to work out whether she’ll be a safe bet for a place to stay. The woman—Triss—beams brightly, and a blush is blooming on her cheeks. Her handshake is perhaps a little overexuberant, but Yennefer can excuse it due to the way it seems to integrate with the happiness apparent from her face.

“Tissaia de Vries told me that I should stay with you,” Yennefer starts once she’s released Triss’s hand. She doesn’t try any of her flippant mannerisms that speak to privilege, as Triss, despite her current setting, has undoubtedly been taught to see through them the same way that all mages are.

“Yes, Tissaia.” The corners of Triss’s mouth drop into a frown for a moment at the mention of the name, but her smile is restored a second later. “I have a few spare rooms in the house I’m renting. Did you bring anything?”

Yennefer waves a hand, and the air shimmers and clears to reveal the sheen of light on a closet taller than her. “Quite a lot, actually.”

Thankfully, Triss doesn’t seem intimidated by the flagrant display of power, and instead laughs, the sound like the warm peal of a bell. The humour vanishes from her face, however, as the corners of her mouth drop into neutrality and she replies, “Is this just a visit from the Brotherhood, then, or were you sent here to take over my post?”

Yennefer twists the corners of her mouth apprehensively, internally swearing. “I lied. Actually, neither.” The words are out before she can think them through.

She watches Triss’s face carefully, gauging her reaction. The other woman stays blank for a moment, her thoughts passing behind her eyes in flits of light. Triss clears her throat to start speaking.

“It’s unorthodox, certainly, but I see no problem with letting you stay with me, so long as—you’re not running from the Brotherhood, are you?”

She laughs, the sound deeper than Triss’s had been and shorter. “I’m too gorgeous for them to be after me.” It’s easier to act flippantly than tell the truth: keep her real problems and concerns behind a crafted mask of a narcissistic, overly confident person. In truth, Yennefer isn’t quite sure what the Brotherhood’s opinion on her going rogue after the double murder was, as she hasn’t yet managed to come into contact with a member who would both lend her a place to stay and tell her about the goings-on within it.

“Okay, then.” Triss appears to recognise Yennefer’s reticence and respect it. She disappears into a back room before emerging with a key fob in her hand, dropping it onto the counter. Yennefer picks it up, eyes on Triss’s as she does so, and reads the address aloud.

“You take your things and get one of the rooms set up.” Her smile is tight, clearly hiding something behind her own mask.

Nodding, Yennefer spins on her heel, and walks out, waving a hand to disappear the closet. Once away from Triss’s gaze from the shop, she stares at the address again, trying to work out where exactly it was.

From her surroundings, she thinks that she’s in the centre of the town, as rows of shops (most of them sporting a _Closed_ sign over their door, a sign of the impending takeover of large shopping corporations) line both sides of the street. Yennefer had portaled into the street in the early morning, drawn by a sudden supernatural disturbance in the nearby area that had triggered the memory of the pain of her own transformation into her current (beautiful, but not _correct_ , not who she was _born to be_ ) state. She had initially wanted to simply find the source of it, but when she had noticed a Brotherhood symbol etched in the shop’s windows, her interest had been further piqued.

The plaza that Yennefer emerges into is empty, in the main, except for a few intrepid tourists brandishing maps and selfie sticks and a homeless person on a bench. She conjures a few coins that she subtly slips next to their head before moving to the tourists to nudge their shoulders.

“May I borrow the map for a moment?” She is careful to act nervous and skittish around them, breaking her words as she talks.

“Indeed, of course,” a man agrees, rather loudly, and hands Yennefer a map that is dampened and worn.

“Thank you,” she replies, adding in a wide smile for good measure. She traces the intricacies of the town’s roads and paths, checking road names against the paper inside the plastic tag. Yennefer nods to herself as she finds it with her finger, closing her eyes and imagining the distance between her current location and the road in her head. Opening her eyes, she cups her hands together and begins to form a portal in front of her, the air warping and changing until a gateway is open in front of her.

Satisfied, Yennefer steps through, the rush of air like a hurricane around her for only a moment before the portal spits her out onto gravel. Experience ensures that her legs stay stable and her body upright when she hits the ground.

There is a brief disturbance in the air behind her in the shape of the wardrobe coming through the portal, and Yennefer raises her arms to halt its movement. She nods at it perfunctorily, waving her hand to move the wardrobe again from its standing position to follow her as she strides along the road, her long skirts billowing around black high-heeled boots.

A few curious faces are pressed to the windows, their noses red from the pressure of the glass against it. Yennefer snorts, waving a hand at them accompanied by a smile that is equal parts friendly and dangerous. As expected, they dive back down underneath the windowsill, the aura of menace that she exudes in any given situation intimidating them.

She checks the numbers of the houses as she passes them, the flicks of her eyes from the postboxes to the tag automatic, reaching a house near the top of the hill with a matching number. A light is clearly on inside the house, however, and Triss had not mentioned living with another person. Frowning, Yennefer opens the gate manually, preferring to keep the majority of her magic reserved for usage in dangerous situations. The opportunity to avoid the neighbours’ curiosity also plays a part in her decision to keep her powers under wraps.

Closing the gate behind her, Yennefer approaches the door, which is painted a bright, cheery red and sports a golden door knocker, handle, letterbox, and keyhole. Fitting the key in the lock, Yennefer figures out the motions to open it after a few minutes of struggling. Pushing open the door, she sees that the hall light is on, but there are no signs of a second inhabitant: the coat rack is empty and there are marks of shoes which are no longer present on the floor, spots of dirt marring the otherwise clean wood.

Around Yennefer, the air is beginning to tremble with the promise of magic, the now-familiar fiery-hot burn of Chaos upon her skin. The door snaps shut, slamming loudly into the doorframe. Her demeanour and temperament darken as she strides through the house, the fabric of her dress rippling with the Chaos against her skin.

The lights are lit in sequence as she walks, leading her through the house in a sort of twisted maze. Anger rises up in her throat, hot and bitter. She continues following them, however, despite how annoyed she is at the game that is being played on her.

“I should have known,” Yennefer spits once the figure of a woman comes into view. The silhouette is immediately recognisable, even before she sees the face and the eyes that have stared into hers and tormented and loved her in equal measure for years.

Tissaia folds her hands elegantly, the thin lines of her fingers crossing over each other and her always-changing eyes finding Yennefer’s, disapproval writ large across her face. “And I should have known better than to trust you to be responsible, piglet, but I suppose we each make mistakes.” With a flick of her enjoined hands, the Chaos on Yennefer’s skin is extinguished, leaving her feeling cold after the heat of the flames.

“Why are you here, Tissaia?” Yennefer has never been able to come up with a mocking nickname for the Rectoress, despite many attempts when she was at Aretuza. The older woman had slipped them off like the eels had slipped into the pond.

Tissaia purses her lips, a gesture that communicates how fed up she is with Yennefer, before replying, “Can’t a teacher pay her favourite student a friendly visit?” The irony in her tone is as sharp as a knife. Yennefer has never been anyone’s favourite anything, and they are mutually aware that she never will be. And Tissaia, as proven many times over, has no friend that she won’t turn her back on if they fail. Fringilla is the strongest proof of that, at least of Yennefer’s graduation class.

Yennefer already feels outmanoeuvred even before she answers, “You don’t do friendly visits.” She curses herself, since the reply is weak in comparison to Tissaia’s. Everything about her is weak in comparison to Tissaia.

The other woman thinks before she speaks again, fiddling idly with several trinkets on the desk beside her. She picks up a blown-glass green elephant, inspects it with searching eyes before placing it down with a slight noise. Finally, she says, “No, that’s wrong. This is a friendlier visit than you would receive from Stregebor, or any of those other _men_ in the Brotherhood.” As ever, the derision in her voice is evident as she says the word _men_. She pauses. “Yet we both have the same point to make to you, piglet.”

“Get onto it, De Vries,” Yennefer snaps.

A heavy sigh issues from the other woman’s mouth. “Patience, piglet, you have no patience. It’s a virtue, you know,” she adds, picking up a second object—a red-pink blown-glass bird—and studying it before setting it down with a gentle clinking sound. Yennefer knows that Tissaia is playing the waiting game now, forcing her to work herself up and become more and more aggressive before Tissaia finally provides her with the answer.

No matter. Yennefer can play too.

She presses her lips together into a thin line, letting amusement linger along the lines of her mouth. “Did they finally decide to give me a place on the Council?”

Tissaia spins to face her from where her eyes are fixed on the collection of glass objects, rage flashing behind her eyes. “You wish, piglet. No, this is a warning.”

Yennefer hides her amusement at how her ability to rile Tissaia up worked, and slips on the mask of the obedient student. “Pray tell me, what have I done wrong now?”

Dryness coats Tissaia’s voice. “Don’t play innocent with me, piglet. I trained you: I know all of your tricks.” Her composure thus regained, she continues, “You know exactly what you’ve done.”

“Oh? What _have_ I done?”

“ _Yennefer_.” Tissaia reaches up to grip her chin and force Yennefer to meet her gaze. “You are a force of Chaos. You’re uncontrollable, and that means you’re dangerous. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go to Aedirn. Now that you have tasted freedom, you want to stay that way forever.”

Yennefer lashes out, her hand closing around Tissaia’s wrist to pull it away from her jaw, taking control of the situation. “And why _shouldn’t_ I be free? Everything you do to me is meant to control me. Stop me from getting what I really want.” Bitterness rises in her mouth as her hand migrates to touch her stomach, feeling the emptiness and the lack of something vital inside her.

“What _do_ you really want, Yennefer?” Tissaia challenges, wrenching her hand out of Yennefer’s vice-like grip.

“I want a child,” Yennefer says in a whisper, pangs of sadness falling over her in great, sweeping waves, eroding all of her barriers and boundaries that she herself created. Pain shoots through her body in a reaction to her emotional pain, and she feels exhaustion seep into her.

Tissaia, however, doesn’t relent. “Get up.” She raises her hand, probably to smack Yennefer across the face and leave a stinging, branding mark, a reminder of how foolish she is being. “Your indiscretion about this matter will put you in greater danger than I.” Tissaia’s gaze softens from the untempered iron of moments ago. “Despite your youthful wilfulness, you were a good student. I do not wish for you to leave us too early.” She continues to stay back, out of Yennefer’s personal space, and Yennefer finds that she does not hate Tissaia as much as she had used to in her school days. Yennefer had been fire and lightning, untamed and wild, and Tissaia had grappled with her to train and contain her, kick the wildness out until she was more docile. Her efforts, however, did not succeed, and the very proof stands in front of her: you may contain lightning, but you may never tame it.

“I will survive, Tissaia,” Yennefer says, disagreeing yet attempting to reassure simultaneously. “You know I will.”

Tissaia tilts her head and studies Yennefer, those ever-changing eyes stripping the statement down to flesh and bone. She nods her assent, a small incline of her head that means so much.

“Control your chaos, Yennefer,” the other woman says, mercifully declining to touch Yennefer in goodbye before she goes. Yennefer doesn’t think that their relationship is ready for physical touches beyond those when they are locked in a battle between each other. After the years spent tormenting Yennefer mentally and physically—she still bears the marks of a rod on her palms and back, although they are long faded and warped thanks to her surgery, and the scars marring her wrists have never disappeared—it seems the least she can do.

Yennefer’s smile is a thin line across the bottom of her face, lips pressed together. “You as well, Rectoress.” It’s a joke, of course. The Rectoress of Aretuza needs no further control over her magic, for she is already the closest person to a master of chaos. Still, the fact that they are on such friendly terms that she feels able to joke alongside Tissaia rather than at her... it feels nice, almost. If only Yennefer didn’t allow herself to feel nice things.

Tissaia nods curtly, before lifting her hand, slim wrist slipping out of a long blazer sleeve. In front of her, the air churns to create a large, circular vacuum, the edges misting. Tissaia takes a step towards Yennefer which is cut off mid-movement as she disappears into the portal.

Yennefer sighs heavily as the atmosphere in the house clears of the fog that her former teacher had brought with her, leaning against the desk. The wood digs into her wrists, pressing against the scars. Her head spins as the magic vanishes, leaving the room quiet. Dust motes rise into the air as if enchanted to do so, beams of sunlight from the large window in the roof hitting them and illuminating their shapes.

Tiredness wearies her, and she finds it increasingly hard to remain standing and conscious. Ozone fills her nostrils, pungent when she breathes it in. Raising a hand to her hair, she brushes it aside, feeling a tangle locking several strands of hair together.

She gestures with her hand for the closet to emerge from its ethereal space, as the difficulty of maintaining its position a little out of the current dimension is undoubtedly a contributing factor to how exhausted she feels. The effort of portaling into the town, carrying her closet in the ethereal space alongside, and forming a protective shield have worn her energy down, and Yennefer requires time to rest and recover her strength.

She is afraid, however, to let go. Tissaia’s appearance had reminded her that she should always keep her guard up, for members of the Brotherhood would be able to find her, and the warning that she had uttered plays on Yennefer’s mind. 

Yennefer hates to exhibit dependency so early in a relationship, but she has been worn down, and guilt weighs her down heavily as she thinks back to the way Triss’s voice had sounded, attempting to establish a mental connection. It takes her a few tries, but she manages to do so, and Triss’s gasp as their minds lock into a connection reassures her.

Slumping down on an old, dusty armchair, the red colour of the velvet eroded by years of not being looked after, Yennefer asks, “Would you... come back to your house? I need, um, someone to help me.” Her face flushes upon saying these words, for she dislikes having to ask for help from someone else. In her entire career, she has always attempted to be self-sufficient, but she is not so weak as to believe that she doesn’t need help sometimes. She still hates actually asking for it, though.

“Of course!” Triss’s genial cheeriness comes through even without Yennefer seeing her face, and in response she finds the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile. The happiness that Triss seems to carry with her wherever she goes must be another kind of magic, if it can affect Yennefer so. “Let me close down first, though.”

“Okay,” Yennefer says in response, and she feels the connection close off. Triss’s distinctive scent, roses and strawberries mixed with notes of cinnamon and clove, disappears from her nose, and Yennefer is surprised to find that she misses the way that the other woman smells. Her own strong lilac and gooseberry scent feels too harsh and difficult on the nose in comparison.

She sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose. She shouldn’t be feeling like this. Attachment, as she has learned inadvertently so many times, is fatal.

Yennefer lifts her head when the scent of roses and strawberries descends upon the house, stronger now than it had been through their mental connection. Triss notes her weariness immediately, rushing to her aid. Surprisingly, Yennefer finds that she is comfortable with Triss being in her personal space, holding her up from where she is sagging of exhaustion. Triss’s hands are warm, but not burning like chaos upon her skin: a comfortable kind of warmth, like a roaring fire in a hearth in the depths of winter.

She lets herself lean on Triss, face inadvertently buried in Triss’s chestnut hair, as the other woman leads her into another room, laying her down onto a flat surface. Yennefer turns onto her side, no doubt messing up her dress, but she finds that she’s so drained that she can’t bring herself to care about such a trivial matter as clothes.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Yennefer von Vengerburg’s head is pillowed by silky black hair, but despite its sheen Triss notices knots and tangles in it. They fill her with sadness as she realises that Yennefer probably hasn’t had anyone care for it in a while. She resists the urge to fetch a brush and comb to ease out the tangles.

She settles one of the sofa cushions underneath Yennefer’s head, lifting it with the gentlest of touches on the back of her head and neck. Yennefer barely notices, only curling further into herself. She sleeps in a tightly packed ball, legs pulled up to her chest and head dipping down to her knees. 

Triss leaves her, ignoring the way that part of her longs to remain and watch the other woman sleep. Yennefer had brought a large wardrobe with her, as Triss had noticed when she had portaled back to her house. It really should have come as no surprise that Yennefer was tired, for even the most experienced and powerful mages had difficulty working with multiple different spells at the same time. That Yennefer had held out for so long during such exertion... Triss found herself simultaneously in awe and terrified of how strong she must be. 

She’d heard the stories of Yennefer von Vengerburg during her time at Aretuza—her appearance, which had caused many to label her a cripple pejoratively, and the thick line drawn between Yennefer and the rest of them, not only by her disfigurement but by her immense power, even back then, had made her notorious. Although she had never seen or met Yennefer, she had been informed about the majority of Yennefer’s exploits through rumours.

With Yennefer now sleeping on the sofa in her front room (a musty old piece of furniture, covered with white cloth to keep away further dust), Triss finds that she is at a loss for what to do with her. Thanks to the circumstances of her arrival, she feels obliged to take care of the other woman, but she is aware that Yennefer has been considered a rogue and therefore a potentially dangerous sorceress by the Brotherhood ever since she had supposedly allowed her charge to die at the hand of a hired assassin.

Triss brushes her hair out of her face, chastising herself for overthinking, and moves to open the wardrobe’s door. The handles are gilded and finely made, curlicues surrounding her hands as she pulls them open. Inside, it contains an assortment of black and white dresses alongside several fur coats.

The tips of her fingers barely trail over them, firstly since she is so impressed by the make and quality of the garments, yet secondly due to how forbidden it feels for her to touch them. It seems to connect her to Yennefer in a way that she is not sure she wants to be.

Pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead to alleviate her thoughts, she lifts several dresses out of the wardrobe, hanging them over her arm as a waiter would a cloth. She takes them up the stairs, careful to make barely any sound lest she disturb Yennefer as she sleeps. The house contains several bedrooms beyond the one that Triss uses, and she selects one that is on the opposite side of the corridor to hers and further down. Tugging the old-fashioned pull by the door to switch on one of the lights and illuminate the darkened room (the heavy curtains are shut across the windows, and the rings are heavily rusted and blackened from their original state, making them difficult to open), she lays the clothes down on the bed in order to open the wardrobe, which is of a similar style to the one that Yennefer had brought along with her. The gold clawed lion’s feet are nailed into the floor, unlike Yennefer’s wardrobe, and it is covered in a dust sheet, which Triss pulls off and disappears into the former servants’ room at the back of the house. The hinges are rusted, and it takes an application of strength to pull it open. She coughs as dust rises from the inside, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. Scouring the inside magically, she smiles when it looks to be fully cleaned before hanging Yennefer’s clothes inside. 

As she is removing the dust coverings from the various pieces of furniture, she hears a sharp impact of something upon brick. Frowning, she runs from the room towards the front of the house, and opens the window in her room in order to look outside. She sees the same white-haired witcher from before standing behind her fence, a second stone in his hand.

“What’s that for?” Triss demands, shouting to be heard from the window.

He looks up from where he had been kneeling, probably collecting more stones to pelt her house with. A brief flicker of recognition passes over him before his face returns to its usual grim neutrality. “Whatever’s targeting Gustfields would do worse than merely stones, mark my words.”

She resists the urge to groan, and instead responds with, “So, it’s another monster. Better come inside, then.” Closing the window with a creak, she rushes down the stairs to open the door. Portaling, Triss has found, is simply a waste of energy and valuable stores of magic when she can get there under her own power. She opens the door, immediately seeing Geralt there. He sniffs at the air, as he had when he’d first entered Triss’s shop and they’d struck up an unusual friendship. By now, Triss is used to his habits, but she still has to resist the urge to groan when encountered with this particular one.

“Lilac and gooseberries.” His eyes flash as he growls the words. His gaze is deadly and angry when it returns to Triss. “You have someone else in here.”

“Someone who needs my help,” Triss replies testily, well used to his moods. “And you had better respect her, or else I shall throw you out.”

“You’ve only done that once,” Geralt counters.

“That was because you were a terrible shedder. I will do it again,” she threatens, and Geralt snorts.

“Try me.” The easy joking that they fall into fades away as Geralt’s brow furrows and turns serious. “I’ve returned from meeting with one of the Gustfielders who could tolerate me. Their town—everyone in it has nightmares. Some say they’ve heard singing when they stayed up in an attempt to get away from them.”

“Singing,” Triss observes. “It’s not just the usual overspill of the supernatural into the mortals’ world, then.” The influence of Chaotic activity—Yennefer’s portaling, for instance, and the transformation of Adda, another—had the possibility to disturb the general supernatural atmosphere in the area, and when that happened, entire towns could be struck with madness, or famine. Personally, Triss has never seen an event so destructive that it had a measurable impact upon communities, and she lives in quiet fear of the possibility. A monster, though? That, she knows how to deal with. Her friendship with Geralt, although rocky at times, ensures that she will always have a Witcher to call upon. And he frequents her shop for monster-hunting supplies. It’s a useful arrangement for both of them.

“No.” Geralt leans against the wall, crossing his arms. “It’s a vampire. I sniffed it out earlier.”

Triss frowns. “Can’t you deal with it on your own?”

“I wish,” he says. “Redania, as a whole, has got a thing against me after I—gained the Butcher of Blaviken moniker. I need help to subdue them, if you will, while I battle the vampire.”

Raising her eyebrows, Triss pushes away from where she is leaning against the wall. “And how would I help? I’m a Temerian, to them. They dislike Temeria. Fuck that—they hate Temeria.” In her role as unofficial town councilor, Triss has suffered endless complaints about how terrible Redania was. Whether it involved the shopkeepers there supposedly cheating them out of their money or the people of the town deliberately going out of their way to make those from Temeria feel unwelcome, Triss knows a thousand different reasons that Redania hates Temeria. She still hasn’t figured the whole deal out, yet, but her getting involved with Redania’s business does not seem like a clever idea.

Geralt sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “Fine—I guess I need to call in— _others_.” The way that he says _others_ gives Triss an impression that he doesn’t have the best relationship with them. She would call the glare in his eyes grudging were it directed at anyone but her.

“Meet me a few miles from the Blue Mountains of Lower Posada this evening. The Edge of the World trail. Bring the other, too.”

“Why should I? She needs to rest and recuperate—,”

“She has elf blood,” Geralt clarifies. “I’ll need to bring him round to my cause, and she’ll help.”

Triss frowns after him as he leaves, leaning against the doorframe. The air rushes onto her face, cold in the way typical of Temeria’s spring. She barely reacts to it, however, instead choosing to think over Geralt’s words.

 _Elf blood_? Yennefer von Vengerburg, famed sorceress—had elf blood? She certainly hadn’t appeared particularly elvish, her features beautiful as all sorceresses’ were, but more in line with the human ideal than an elf’s brand of beauty. Although, there was the matter of Yennefer’s transformation, which had erased her previous self and created an entirely new one, only the name surviving.

Triss ducks her head into her shoulder to hide her tears. She doesn’t know why she’s crying. Perhaps it’s merely a reaction to the events of the day so far—too much, too soon.

A soft sound comes from behind, and Triss turns, meeting Yennefer von Vengerburg’s violet eyes. The other woman rubs a languid hand over her face, yawning.

“Who was that?” she murmurs, finger-combing her hair into neatness.

Triss forces a bright smile. “Nobody important. You must be _starving_.”

•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Yennefer sinks into the chair, groaning slightly with the pain that lances through her spine. Triss hovers over her, a concerned look on her face.

Waving a hand, Yennefer leans back, attempting to project an aura of relaxation. “I’m fine, darling.” She gathers her skirt up in one hand, allowing her to cross her legs.

Triss flushes a bright pink at the ‘darling’ part, turning away to heat up the food. She had insisted upon doing the most menial of tasks for Yennefer, even though the short sleep had restored much of her constitution. Holding her hand over the food, Triss’s hand catches into fire, a small, controlled flame that she directs across the plate.

Yennefer watches with a raised eyebrow. “There’s something called a _microwave_ that I’ve heard is easier.”

“I like to ration the electricity for this place.” Triss returns. “Bills are a bitch for this place.”

She finds herself immediately warming to this more relaxed, less uptight Triss. The other woman seems in her element when caring for anyone else, but upon hearing the suggestion that she should make her life easier, she stiffens up and frowns in disapproval. Yennefer genuinely _likes_ Triss, she finds with a jolt of surprise: she is a nice reprieve from the constant suspicious eyes, someone who easily and quickly finds a place in her life. And while Yennefer usually considers affection for another a weakness—especially after her experience with Istredd—Triss seems so utterly harmless that Yennefer cannot help but to weaken her barriers for her that tiniest, most crucial bit. 

“Here,” Triss says, handing her the plate. There are slight scorch marks on the enamel from Triss’s unorthodox method of heating it, but Yennefer takes it nevertheless. Melitele, she is so hungry. She had not realised how much of a toll the magic usage had taken on her before this.

Even otherwise unremarkable pizza and chips tastes like the finest food from the best restaurants (Yennefer would know, having been to several of them and eaten there—for free) to her. She smiles appreciatively at Triss.

“Thank you,” Yennefer says, putting down her half-eaten slice of pizza. “I mean it.”

Triss smiles brightly, and pangs of sadness shoot through Yennefer as she considers the fact that she will inevitably have to leave Triss, one day or another. It’s not fair that she entrust Triss with all the responsibilities that come with helping her: helpfulness might be Triss’s dominant trait, but Yennefer knows that firm barriers must always be drawn to prevent those who heal from overexerting herself. Caring for Yennefer would doubtless take up all of Triss’s life, and Yennefer dislikes being a permanent fixture, for it seems like an annoyance more than anything else.

Yennefer finishes the pizza and chips in silence, only broken by the sounds of her chewing or picking up another piece of food. Triss busies herself with menial tasks in the kitchen.

Were it not for the circumstances, it would be a lovely domestic scene. Yennefer might be returning home from work later than usual, and Triss might kiss her on the cheek and warm her food up in her charmingly inefficient way. The image is so vivid in her mind that she can nearly see it.

“If you’re done,” Triss says, “my friend’s going to need us to come with him.” Her words break the fantasy, call Yennefer back to the present and remind her that it was merely a thoughtless daydream.

Yennefer waves a hand, testing out her magic, and the plate levitates for a moment before she drops it to the table. It lands as gently as she can manage, rattling harshly against the wood of the tabletop.

“Alright,” Yennefer replies. She pushes the chair away and stands up, carrying her plate to the cheap laminate counter where Triss has piled various grimy dishes. “Will I need to change?” She’s aware that she may not look her best, what with her arduous journey and her nap on Triss’s sofa.

Triss inspects her for a minute, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. She rubs a hand along her chin before replying, “Yeah, probably. It involves elves, faeries, whatever they're called, I think.”

“I’ve never met an actual fey that wasn’t half-blood,” Yennefer observes. Her own mother, half-fey, had chosen to hide away the truth of her heritage as much as possible, and so Yennefer had not learned of her fey ancestry until she studied at Aretuza and Tissaia had been able to pick out the characteristics of fey blood in her, which had caused her humpback and jutting jaw. Yennefer had chosen to correct those particular flaws in her body, of course, along with her chest and genitalia, when she underwent her graduation.

Triss smiles at that: she seems to have a smile for everything, and Yennefer wants to see all of them. “Neither have I,” she says conspiratorially, as if they are simply two friends sharing secrets and not strangers who have barely gotten to know each other. Yennefer simultaneously envies and pities Triss’s easy way of striking up friendships with new people.

“Your clothes are upstairs, furthest bedroom back: I put them in the closet there while you slept.” Triss calls out to her as she leaves the room.

“Thank you,” Yennefer returns, although she dislikes the fact that Triss has gone out of her way to integrate her into her life in this house.

Yennefer finds the bedroom without much trouble, although it takes her a few tries to find the pull to turn on the light. It flickers into light, illuminating the centre of the room and shadowing the majority of it.

The closet looms intimidatingly out of the wall, but Yennefer gives a firm tug on its handles and it opens, revealing her familiar clothes packed inside it.

She picks out the silver fur coat and the black dress that goes underneath it, puts them on, arranging the furs on her shoulders. Yennefer checks herself in the window, the light providing a pseudo mirror: she runs a hand through her hair, smoothing and straightening it with a gentle pulse of magic. Her violet eyes stare back at her, seeming to show her true age and weariness.

Or perhaps that is merely the unflattering smudging of her eyeshadow. Yennefer sighs at the prospect of having to redo a full face of makeup, and corrects it with magic instead, disappearing the ugly eyeshadow into the ethereal dimension.

She settles her shoulders, aiming to project an air of easy confidence, and tests out a smile, mimicking Triss’s earlier one. It makes her look threatening rather than kindly, but Yennefer doesn’t mind that.

Yennefer walks down the stairs, wondering at how light the day still seems. To her, it feels as if entire weeks could have passed in the time that she had been in Triss’s house.

Triss waits at the foot of the stairs, dressed in a more practical peacoat over the pantsuit that she wore. Her feet are in heeled boots, like Yennefer’s, but they are a softer brown with a chunkier heel—unlike Yennefer’s stilettos and shining black leather. She offers her arm to Yennefer, and she slips her arm into Triss’s, attempting not to blush at the contact. 

When Yennefer had first met Triss, she had realised immediately that Triss had some degree of attraction to her, the blush had told her that much: she was not entirely sure, however, whether she could reciprocate it if it was truly romantic and not merely based on her appearance. Yennefer’s experience with relationships has never really extended from sex, and although she and Istredd had carried on their glorified one night stand long enough that it could have been considered an affair, their graduation always stood in the way of them striking up a true relationship—for after her surgery and the party, she had been sent to Aedirn to be the Brotherhood’s spy there, having manipulated them into swapping her place with Fringilla Vigo.

“Are we portaling there?” Yennefer asks, turning to Triss.

The other woman shakes her head, a slight, breathy laugh emerging from her lips. “Νo,” she says. “The neighbours aren’t as suspicious as some other places—Cintra, for instance—but I still like to retain the cover of normality.”

Normality, to Yennefer, is useless when her very presence alerts curious eyes, husbands looking upon her lustfully and women either jealously or awed by her. Yet Triss has a different aura to her, inviting friendship rather than intimidation.

“We’ll be driving,” Triss adds, as if the thought of a journey in a _car_ —the most mortal of vehicles—is perfectly sane. Yennefer purses her lips at the prospect, but otherwise doesn’t complain.

“You have a car?” Yennefer asks, trying to hide the revile in her voice.

“I do!” answers Triss cheerfully. “It was cheap, and I’ve found it’s very useful for transporting some of my stock and supplies.” She lifts a set of car keys in front of Yennefer’s face, jangles them to enforce her point. “Come on, it’s parked a few minutes away.” Her steps sprightly, she opens the door and walks out, pulling Yennefer along with her. They are halfway down the garden path before Triss gasps as if she’s been attacked, drops Yennefer’s arm and runs back to the house, stopping in front of the door. Yennefer spins, confused, and watches as Triss does something to the door.

Triss returns, a little out of breath. “Sorry, forgot to lock the door afterwards!”

Yennefer raises her brow quizzically. “That’s something you do?”

Nodding in response, Triss grabs Yennefer’s hand again to tug her along. “It’s for security,”

The mortal world is indeed strange, Yennefer thinks. The concept of physical security is redundant when she has magic flowing through her, which she can manipulate to provide protection. Although mages can fall victim to physical attacks, the same as anyone else, Yennefer is usually able to cast a calming spell to dissuade them. And yet Triss seems to consider leaving without locking the door a grievous breach of defences.

Triss’s hand is warm in hers, the skin soft, and somehow Yennefer doesn’t feel the urge to pull her hand away, instead allowing Triss to lead her out of the grounds of the house and down the road. She notices a few darkened eyes through the windows, and assumes that it’s due to jealousy of one or both of them. Homosexuality has been a crucial part of the Brotherhood for years, particularly because couples rarely if ever choose to raise children, and persecution on that basis seems strange to her.

“Here she is,” Triss says, cheerily. A car briefly flashes its lights when Triss presses a button on a key fob—Yennefer assumes the device is magic—and she opens the passenger door, gesturing for her to get in. Gathering up her skirts and the long hem of her coat, brushing the ground, Yennefer bends down and fits herself into the seat. It has been a long time since she’s been in a car, portaling having taken the place of the majority of other modes of transport, and thus it takes her a small while to figure out how to situate herself.

“There you go,” Triss says, reaching over her to pull the seatbelt free and work it into the holder digging into Yennefer’s hip. The moment seems intimate to Yennefer, a gesture that could become something else easily. She settles into the seat, leaning back, and turns her head to see Triss belting herself in. The other woman turns the key in the car, and the engine sputters to life, surprising Yennefer initially and causing her to grip the sides of her seat tightly.

Triss eases the car backwards, turning to face out onto the road. Her eyes and hands are steady and confident as the car moves. Yennefer envies how normal she looks at the wheel—as if she has managed to truly integrate herself in with the mortals.

“We’ll be there in about forty five minutes,” Triss supplies. “Mind turning on the radio for me and finding Temeria Classical Radio Station?”

Yennefer is confused by her words, but moves to fiddle about with the central dash regardless, pressing random buttons. One of them blasts cold air into her face.

Triss laughs, apparently amused by her incompetence with the mortal technology. “You’re practically an old woman, aren’t you?” She turns a dial on the dashboard, and sound begins to fill the car. Beethoven’s Symphony no.5 in C minor, op. 67. Yennefer recognises the tune from nights spent at concerts, but somehow, coming from the tinny speakers, it feels like a new experience hearing it. Triss hums along to the tune as she drives, and when Yennefer starts to relax, now sure that the car won’t break down instantly as mortal technology is wont to do, she hums alongside Triss.

•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“Two tickets to the Edge of the World trail, please,” Triss says to the bored teenager manning the gate. They accept the crinkled bills that Triss hands over from behind the window, tucking them into the cash drawer and counting out change in coins. As two long strips of paper are printed off, they pull them free and slide them under the window along with the coins, which rattle against the tray.

Triss tucks the change into one of the pockets of her coat, shivering faintly, and hands Yennefer one of the tickets. The other woman stares suspiciously down at it, running her thumb over the text.

“Have a good night,” the teenager says noncommittally. Smiling at them, Triss moves to the side to make way for the next lot of people in the queue.

“Where did that Witcher say he’d meet us?” Yennefer hisses, pulling the silvery coat tighter about herself.

Pursing her lips, Triss takes a moment to remember before answering, “A few miles from the Blue Mountains. Presumably, the Edge of the World trail will lead us there.”

Yennefer sighs heavily. “Witchers. Obtuse idiots.” Triss can’t help but agree. Still, she darts her eyes around until her gaze catches on the words ‘The Edge of the World’, on a sign lit from above by lights. She points it out to her companion (friend? It seems a little early to say). “I assume we’re meant to take that trail.”

Shrugging, she walks towards the entrance to it, the air darkening around her by now. She presses her ticket into the machine fixed onto the gate.

“The park closes at eight thirty p.m.,” the machine says in its deadpan voice. Yennefer scowls darkly at it. 

“Do you think I care about your fucking mortal time limits,” she says curtly.

“Come on,” Triss says, leading Yennefer underneath the sign and onto the trail. Pebbles skitter underneath her boots as it changes from the entryway to the trail itself. The sides are cordoned by red rope, showing the route. It goes uphill at first, and Triss’s breath starts to come faster and thinner as she hurries upwards, legs burning with exertion.

There is a whoosh of air against the side of her face, and Triss glances up from the ground to see that Yennefer has portaled further up the hill. Immediately, her instincts are to cover up the usage of magic, but when she looks back she sees that nobody has followed them and nobody has noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Yennefer evokes something risky in her, something sharp-edged and wickedly joyous. Triss gives into it, and portals up the hill, smiling down at Yennefer.

The grin that comes onto Yennefer’s face at seeing Triss above her is competitive and ever so different to the sleepy-eyed people of Temeria. Within a moment of seeing her, Yennefer is already disappearing into the ethereal and appears at the top of the hill, lights from the side of the path illuminating her from behind.

Triss steps into the ethereal space again, keeping the physical appearance of the land in mind. She focuses on a point in the distance, moves towards it and steps into the physical world again. Her laughter rings out over the hills, and she spins around, feeling the same joy that she had felt when she had first managed to levitate a rock, back in her first year at Aretuza. The moment seems simultaneously so long ago and close enough to touch.

Yennefer fixes her with a dark purple gaze as she appears in front of Triss. “I know where we go, now,” she says. Without any additional words needing to be said, Triss takes her hand, linking their power together and casting the beginnings of a portaling spell. She feels Yennefer’s magic slip over hers, as if she’s taking Triss’s hand and guiding it to where she wishes it to go.

The presence of Geralt is a disturbance in the ethereal atmosphere. It simultaneously recoils from him and is attracted to him, the mutagens put in place by magic drawing other supernatural creatures towards him and driving away the attentions of mortals to him. More interesting to Triss, however, than the witcher is the barely concealed færie realm within the mountain. The cover is barely a wisp of magic, but it is strong despite that, dissuading mortals from coming near. She assumes that it is the reason that this particular trail is named the End of the World, even though the thought of a faerie realm hidden in the Blue Mountains would have been the furthest thing from their minds when naming it: spells with intent to hide often change their nature into a repellant one, as often they last longer when not actively trying to cover up something.

Triss blinks when she feels the cold air of the night against her face, the ethereal dissipating around her. It takes a moment for her vision to adjust, but once it does, she notices Geralt’s golden eyes peering out from behind a tree. The scent of pine is heavy in the air, and they are clearly off the trail, for the ground crackles with breaking twigs when she steps forwards. 

Geralt grunts out a greeting, and turns his back to begin walking towards the place where the faerie realm had been lying, concealed. Triss hurries after him, nearly running to catch up. Behind her, she hears Yennefer sigh heavily as she follows on, heel snapping a twig.

The faerie realm is well concealed: despite knowing the location in the ethereal dimension, Triss is barely able to make out the slight shimmer in the air that indicates a spell of concealment. As they approach the side of the mountain that contains it, Triss runs her hand along the air, the thin slip of a spell like thread under her fingers.

It is truly fascinating work, the type of magic very different to any practised by the Brotherhood and yet recognisable to a trained eye. Triss curses Cintra’s campaign against magic: without its head, Calanthe’s, persecution of faeries and half-elves, she may have been able to learn their techniques and further hone her own powers.

“Well, let’s get this over with, then,” Geralt says darkly, reaching for a long, tangled-together stream of ivy, and he pushes aside a layer of vines, the curtain falling aside with their movement to reveal the faerie realm.

Yennefer lets out a small, shocked gasp, but Geralt grunts as if the entire experience of going to the faerie realm is one that he has experienced one too many times and strides into the court, a hulking black-clad shape among the brightly costumed faerie dancers. 

Triss reaches for Yennefer’s hand, feeling it loose and warm in hers. She squeezes, gently, and Yennefer blinks and turns to her.

“I’ve simply... never seen a faerie court before,” Yennefer confesses, still looking in from the outside. The yellow light skims across the planes of her face as she leans closer to stare at them.

“Be glad, they’re a pain in the ass,” Geralt grumbles, waving at them to hurry up. Yennefer follows Triss obediently, staring at her surroundings, fascinated.

Veins of tiny pieces of precious gemstones weave through faults in the caves, shimmering in the torchlight of the cavern. The court entrance is a narrow cave, the walls close enough around them that there’s only enough room for two to walk abreast, but the cavern that it opens up into is massive, spanning what seems to be the entire width of the faerie hill and filled with pairs of dancing faeries. 

Geralt presses through the groups of faeries spinning their partners about with a single-minded determination, a corridor opening up in his wake. Triss ducks under a wave of a long sleeve, and Yennefer feels a skirt brush her leg as they work their way through the dancers.

The music floating through the cavern, upon the surface, is a light and airy tune about a man who went to live with the faeries. Underneath, however, a dark undertone of loss and death haunts it, and Triss doesn’t think she imagines the anxiety on Yennefer’s face. 

Geralt approaches the High Table, and doesn’t bother to take a knee before the King of the Faeries. He’s gruff and to the point instead.

“A vampire’s giving the entire fucking town of Gustfields nightmares, and I need you to distract them long enough for me to find and kill it.”

The faerie King’s smile is seductive as he leans forwards, a goblet of faerie wine in hand. “Eat with us a while.” 

“They said never to eat faerie food—” Yennefer starts to interject, but is broken off by Geralt.

“I know these ones. They won’t hurt us. Least, not with food.” Geralt’s tone is dark as he looks at the High Table and the three unoccupied seats. 

A faerie server leads them to their places, and midway through the first course (berries covering a slice of venison), the faerie bard sidles over, his lute discarded, and drapes himself over Geralt’s side.

“Darling, I missed you,” the bard coos, his right hand moving to Geralt’s back. “You hardly come any more. Is it because you don’t want to see me? I’m hurt, you know,” he says reproachfully. 

Geralt sighs, the sigh of the long-suffering. “Jaskier, it’s only been five months.” 

“Yes, but I was so lonely,” the bard sighs lightly. He leans down to snatch a berry from Geralt’s plate, pressing it into his mouth.

Geralt rolls his eyes, and Yennefer stifles a laugh. Her eyes are bright and sprightly, and she looks utterly at home in the faerie court.

Triss is happy that Yennefer seems settled, but she is filled with a nervous energy that coils down her spine. The faeries set her on edge: their individual chattering is indistinguishable from the general sounds of the hall, but as her gaze runs over the groups of faeries, she sees their beady, utterly non-human eyes settle upon her and their lips curl into a sneer. She’s used to humans, those who are easy enough to read and completely unaware of her latent magic, not faeries whose entire beings are made of it.

“So, darling,” the faerie bard—Jaskier—comments, poking Geralt’s cheek playfully. “What _big_ , _scary_ , _nasty_ thing have you come to us about now?”

“Fuck off, bard,” Moodily, Geralt stabs his gilded fork into a piece of venison, and drags it back to reveal the pink meat underneath the cooked outside. 

Seemingly undaunted by Geralt’s bad temper and glower, Jaskier takes the opportunity to steal a handful of purple-red berries, and eats them one at a time, chewing on them slowly. It’s probably meant to be seductive as well, if the way he lets the juices dribble down his chin is any indication, but the attempt falls on oblivious eyes: Geralt is singlemindedly focused on the venison in front of him, Yennefer is midway between digging into the food and staring around the court, and Triss is entirely uninterested in the charms of the bard, instead choosing to focus on Yennefer.

“Let me,” Triss says, reaching for Yennefer’s abandoned knife and fork, which reflect the light of the faerie hall in their golden surface.. She lays her arms across the other woman’s to cut up the venison, blade sinking into the softened meat easily. After slicing several pieces, Triss places the knife and fork back down on opposite sides of the golden plate (faeries are entirely too fascinated with gold) and smiles at Yennefer warmly. To Triss’ great delight, Yennefer returns it and presses her fork into the venison, lifting the meat to her mouth.

Triss has eaten faerie food a few times by now, but only when she has needed to. It was a necessity, a trial to undergo for the greater good, not meant to bring pleasure. Her first experience with it had been used to divine whether she was a spy for the Brotherhood or not, and luckily Triss had managed to enchant her words and thus prevent herself from telling the truth. Therefore, she has grown to associate it with an ordeal. At the first bite of venison, however, Yennefer’s eyes close and her lips curl up.

She finds herself smiling as well, Yen’s delight feeding her own mood. “Is it good?” Triss asks her, poking her shoulder.

Violet eyes open to meet hers and Yennefer sighs happily. “Best meal of my life,” she says, and Triss thinks that she might mean it. “It tastes like what I always thought home should be like.”

“And what’s that, exactly?” Triss replies, interested.

Taking another bite, Yennefer frowns as she’s chewing. It takes a moment for her to swallow and speak again.

“Like the warmth of a hearth, crackling and merry,” Yen says, “like sweetened cider sprinkled with cinnamon and like...” she trails off, turning to look Triss fully in the eyes. “Like I imagine your lips to be. Roses and strawberries.”

A gasp leaves Triss’ mouth, although she tries not to show it. Patches of red-hot blush rise upon her cheeks and she is left with nothing to say.

Yen drops her fork and reaches for Triss’ cheek, and she is already closing her eyes, her lips parting readied for Yen’s own to meet them.

“I think _this_ one has had a bit too much faerie wine,” the bard declares, sidling over to interrupt them. He snatches Yen’s drained goblet and moves to fill it from the small waterfall cascading down in the back corner of the court.

Triss drops her head to her food, desperately hating _that fucking bard_ , but resisting the urge to lift her eyes to Yennefer’s and say what she so dearly wishes to. Clearly, Yennefer had been drunk on faerie wine, and everything she said would have been a bent version of the truth.

Faeries can’t lie, but faerie wine makes it so that they can twist and mould the truth to their own version, which is why the majority of them are always so drunk. Although Triss has never seen its effects on humans directly, she has heard of the terrible happenings that have arisen after mortals have drunk the faerie wine, and suffice to say that it ruins lives—in every way possible. Truth, unbridled truth, is a dangerous thing.

The bard returns with Yennefer’s goblet, now full of sparkling, clear water, and replaces it in its previous position. Triss resists the urge to slap him upside the face and instead slices another piece of venison, chewing on it with less fervour than before.

Looking up, Triss notices the faerie king walking towards their places, and immediately swallows the piece of food and drops her tableware. From her Book of Faeries that she keeps on the highest shelf in the shop, she knows that it is always wise to look good in front of the king, as they place a high value on appearances.

He doesn’t seem interested in her or Yennefer, though, for he only gives them a cursory glance, and instead he crosses his arms and frowns at Geralt (and, collectively, Jaskier, as he seems to have taken up residence on Geralt’s shoulders and the crown of his head.)

“I thought I told you to stay away, Witcher,” he says, and although his tone is mild, fury radiates off him.

Shrugging, Geralt leans back in his seat and waves a hand at the king. “People are troubled, and the usual shit isn’t working. I need faerie help.”

“C’mon, Filavandrel,” the bard sighs, “I’ve missed this face.” He cups Geralt’s cheek and skates his thumb over a sharp cheekbone to prove it.

The king looks vaguely horrified. “My court would prefer it if you kept your... indiscretions away from them,” he declares. “I may permit you trysts with him, but I cannot deny the voice of those who wish for you to end this long, drawn-out affair of yours.”

Geralt snorts. “ _He_ has a name.”

Blonde locks are tossed back over a shoulder decorated with what seem to be gilded leaves, from Triss’s viewpoint. “Simply tell me what you want from me, Witcher, and then you may take your leave.”

“I already did.”

“Customs must,” the king says without any degree of amusement.

“Fine, what the fuck is the demon giving Redania nightmares, done,” Geralt pushes a stray silver hair off his face.

“ _Language_ ,” the bard chastises, causing Geralt to laugh derisively out of the corner of his mouth.

“You say worse in bed,” Triss manages to catch Geralt’s whisper into the bard’s ear, and suddenly she cannot stay there. 

Dropping the fork in her hand onto the table, she manages to stand while retaining her dignity for long enough to say, “I am feeling slightly sick. If you will permit me, I will take my leave of you for the moment.”

The faerie king waves a hand at her curtly. “Go, then.”

Triss nods and walks away from the table, posture rigid, to the corner of the court, near the waterfall. A lithe faerie with long, wavy lilac hair motions with long fingers towards the back of the waterfall, her eyes knowing, and Triss is filled with gratitude at her discretion. She ducks through a cave mouth in the rock of the mountain and finds herself in a much smaller cave than the faerie hall. It is still a fair size, though, as Triss does not feel immediately cramped in as she enters and her head does not graze the ceiling. Noticing a rock with a flattened and smoothed surface, seemingly meant to be a seat, Triss slides onto it, already burying her face in her hands.

She isn’t sure why that one display of affection between them had pulled such a reaction from her. Perhaps it had been because she had nearly, almost, but _not quite_ kissed Yennefer earlier. Perhaps it had been jealousy that she had not managed to find her own perfect partner yet. Perhaps it had been a mixture of the two.

Triss lifts her face from the cradle of her hands as she hears a swish of gauze, denoting movement nearby. The faerie with lilac hair glides to sit on the floor, graceful as they spread their gauzy skirts.

“You are not happy,” the faerie says, gaze curious. It reaches to cup Triss’s cheek and pull her face to align with its own. “Why are you not happy? All the humans are happy, after we steal them away.”

Genuine confusion is upon its face, as if it cannot understand why Triss is so ailed. As if that fucking faerie wine wasn’t the cause of it all.

“Do not cry,” it says, thumb crossing Triss’s cheek to dry the tear running down it. “Tears are pearls, only to be taken out at the most beautiful of occasions.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Triss asks in return. She doesn’t shed any more tears, though, resistance replacing sadness.

The faerie’s lips purse, purple under the otherwise pink skin. It seems to be at a loss, long nails ( _are_ they nails? They seem awfully skin-like for nails) brushing across her cheek in a waft of cold skin in an almost metronomic rhythm. Finally, it responds, “This is not the time for you to cry. All this—” she casts her hand towards the glow and noises of the feast outside “—it means nothing. It is but a wisp, a glimmer in the night. You will remember little.”

Triss feels an amalgamation of anger and sadness rise up inside her, the faerie’s words touching on something that she has left unsaid. “That’s exactly what I’m scared of. I don’t want all this to be gone in the morning. I want this thing between us to be _real_.”

“We are in the place of unreality,” the faerie answers, long, twisting brows dipping down over their eyes. “It must disappear come dawn.”

She wants to cry out, scream her lungs out until they burst from exertion. She wants the bravery to ask Yennefer face-to-face, wants to be able to lace her fingers with the other woman’s without doubting the intentions of the both of them. She wants the bricks to the bridge between them to hold and keep their relationship genuine. Triss _wants_ , and it is slowly killing her from the inside.

“Let it last,” Triss says, staring into the faerie’s eyes. “Please, let it last.”

It blinks. “Whether it will last in the end is entirely down to the both of you.”

Triss is already getting up, heels digging against rock. “Then I will make it last.” She storms out of the cave, her initial determination fading as she progresses further into the mass of people. The bright fabrics of the dancers’ outfits flash across her eyes like multicoloured smoke bombs exploding in front of her, blocking out her vision and the path to the main table. She ducks when she spots an opening under a skirt, a leg brushing her back as she passes. The yellow light of the cavern guides her way through them, the path spotty and inconsistent. She perseveres, however, thinking of Yennefer and her small smile at Triss heating up the pizza with the tiny fire held in the palm of her hand.

“The main table?” she asks, out of breath, to one of the servers bringing in a dish wrapped in golden cloth. He dips down to her level to point, and her eyes follow the direction of his finger to settle on the form of the Faerie King—Filavandrel, according to the Witcher—whose face is shadowed by the golden ornament on his shoulder. She thanks him and wades back into the dancing, her path clearer now that she has a destination in mind. Their twisted-up forms gap to reveal the head table, and she hurries along the side to emerge on the other side of it.

Geralt’s rough voice cuts through the music, clearing Triss’s head. “And you’ll let them continue to _suffer_? Fucking hell, they’re _paranoid_ , can’t even think properly. She’s affecting them that bad, and you _choose_ to turn a blind eye?”

Filavandrel seems pained as he paces, eyes fixed upon the ground. “Do you remember what happened last time we left our safe haven here? You were sent to _kill_ us, Witcher, and it’s only our luck that you didn’t!”

“I wouldn’t have killed you!” Geralt roars, and Triss’s gaze flicks to the space where the bard had been earlier, but he is no longer there: she supposes that he has left the scene, not wishing to be stuck choosing between lover and allegiance. Truly, she feels sorry for him: he had seemed so loving despite disapproval, and far too bright to burn away his life with Geralt. 

“No,” Filavandrel agrees, quietly, before he raises his voice again. “Another, less so kind, might, though—and the mortals are stuffed to the brim with those less so kind.”

Geralt sighs, shifting about. “I won’t ask any of you to risk yourself unduly. Triss—” he turns to her, although she didn’t think that he had noticed her return “—you could create something to protect them, right?”

She bites her lip unthinkingly as she considers the extent of her skills. “Yes,” she says at last. 

“I suppose I could allow some to go—” Filavandrel admits, his sentence broken off as the bard emerges from the crowd, slightly dishevelled but nevertheless still beaming. 

“I will go!” he declares, wrapping an arm around the faerie next to him and squeezing their bicep inadvertently. “I’ll sacrifice myself—for you, my love,” he smiles, and it is small and private, seeming to be directed only at Geralt. 

Triss thinks that if witchers were able to blush, he would be flushing red at the moment. A grin curls up the edges of his lips, but it is quickly hidden with a wrist across the bottom of his face. It is there, though, and that is all that matters.

“I, as well,” the server that Triss had asked for directions stands forward.

Shock fills Filavandrel’s expression. “Chireadan?”

He bows low to the main table, arm crossed across his chest. “My king, I am sorrier than you know to leave you, but this is a matter of importance.” Chireadan’s eyes are wide when he returns to a standing position.

The faerie king closes his eyes, wafts of his hair glinting in the golden light. When he speaks, it is in a soft murmur. “You have my blessings.” 

With his words, Triss can feel the event coming to a close: the deal has been made, and tomorrow is in sight. She stands back from the high table to allow 

“I would have gone even without his blessings,” she hears Jaskier whisper conspiratorially to Yennefer as the splendour of the feast starts to dull. Yennefer cocks her head with thinned lips that hide a smile.

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have done that, not even for love.” she answers, and Triss knows that Yennefer is telling him that without any lies or half-truths hidden within it. 

The bard’s smile is forced more than anything else. “One day, you’ll find the kind of love that makes you do that. One day, you’ll find the kind of love that makes for the most enduring songs.”

Yennefer dips her head to briefly put her face in her palms, but comes up again with an incredulous smile. “I don’t think I will. But it’s a kind thing you said.”

She leaves his side to stand by Triss, and she resists the urge to tell the other woman that she had overheard their conversation. The moment feels tense, electricity seeming to run through the air around them. 

It is Triss who breaks the tension. “Come on, Yennefer,” she says softly. “Let’s go home.”

Yennefer turns away, shaking her head. “No. You can go. I’ve got something I want to do.”

Triss nods, understanding. “I’ll see you soon?” she asks, hopefulness in her voice.

Yennefer does not turn back to her, and replies, her tone decisive, “Goodbye, Triss.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Yennefer’s finally decided. She’d had enough.

It wasn’t like she had ever really wanted to be a witch, really. Tissaia had stolen her away from her family, and while both had mistreated her, she had at least felt... better about it in her family. More like she deserved it.

So Yennefer has chosen a bonfire for this particular ending, and she is currently piling her books atop it. Leather-bound books. Books with human skin for covers. Animal furs surrounding the pages. She piles them all on indiscriminately, rips out the stitching holding them together. 

Triss would say that she was being an idiot and that they could work it out, in the way that she always seems to want to heal situations again. Tissaia would snap at her and tell her to halt, an order rather than a real discussion. Probably throw in a couple of nasty insults in there, as well. She was always snide when it came to Yennefer.

Neither of them are here, though. Triss thinks that she is still at the faerie court, rather than her portaling to the nearest aged bonfire pyre, and Tissaia always has better things to do than pay attention to Yennefer’s ploys for attention, or calls for help. Nobody can stop her. 

So she’s going to burn all her books. Every last one of them that ties her down to this life of magic and chaos and unbalance. Every last one of them that connects her and Triss.

Yennefer dumps the last one on with a grin of grim satisfaction, and moves to grab another log to throw atop the pile. The kindling for the bonfire is nearly taller than Yennefer by the time the sun starts to go down.

Sunset is always important for witches, the time when the day gives way to the night, and now it is important to Yennefer in particular, because it will mark the time that she left it behind. For good. 

Not even Triss could make her change her mind. It’s like what she told the bard: while love may drive some people, Yennefer would never change her mind—not even for love.

Yennefer breathes out a cantrip, the last one that she’ll ever have to cast if she’s lucky enough to evade pursuit, and fire starts to lick over the wood. It consumes slowly at first, and from the inside, and grows steadily until the entire pile is lit up. A beacon for any nearby witches, but not for Yennefer. Not anymore.

She watches the books burn for a couple of minutes more, sees the fire dancing over them and blackening their edges, papers curling up and folding in on themselves as fire starts to flare into the air, growing fuller upon the kindling. Yennefer feels a deep sense of contentment watching them burn: it is as if she has found herself, properly this time. 

Yennefer’s face does not shift from neutrality, but as she turns to leave the bonfire, she feels what freedom might be like for the first time.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- in this fic yennefer is trans, it’s not a major detail but i just wanted to make it clear  
> \- gustfields is a town in redania  
> -fey, faerie and elf are used interchangeably here. they all indicate the same thing 
> 
> also if you’re annoyed at the lack of geraskier, im going to point out that they got more page time than some fics where yenntriss isn’t even tagged as a minor relationship... think on that
> 
> ANYWAYS! apparently writing 10k chapters takes longer than i thought, but this is definitely continuing.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for taking a chance on this!! if you enjoyed, well...
> 
> toss a kudos to your writer,  
> o valley of plenty!  
> toss a comment to your writer,  
> a friend of humanity!
> 
> (did i write another Witcher fic just to use that joke? yes. yes i did)


End file.
